Protein starvation state

The electric oscillations of the brain make themselves evident in a crude way in electroencephalograms, which show patterns of electric oscillation that depend upon the state of consciousness and the nature of the encephalonic activity of the subject. Evidence that the ephemeral memory, with an effective life that is rarely longer than a few minutes, is electrical in nature is provided by a number of observations. It has been noted that unconsciousness produced by a blow to the head or electric shock often has caused complete loss of memory of the events experienced during the period of 10 or IS minutes before the blow or shock to the brain. Moreover, when the formation of new permanent memories is interfered with by the decreased ability of the brain to carry on metabolic processes involving proteins, as in old age or KorsakolTs syndrome (alcoholism, protein starvation, thiamine deficiency), the memory continues for a period of 10 or IS minutes, but usually not much longer the memory seems to persist only so long as conscious attention is directed to it (3). 

If food is unavailable for more than approximately 24 h, glycogen reserves in the liver will become depleted and the individual would enter a state of biochemical starvation. Progressive loss of muscle protein (wasting) would occur in order to generate sufficient glucose to maintain the metabolic activity of, in particular, the central nervous system. 

Amino acids (and precursor proteins) also are frequently used to variable degree under hypometabolic states, such as starvation, estivation, or hibernation, as sources of glucose precursors and as direct energy sources. In addition to C02 and H20, amino acid catabolism of course releases ammonia, which in hibernation or in estivation creates added metabolic problems. The amount of regulatory and metabolic machinery that organisms have invested in order to deal with ammonia indicates how serious ammonia-associated problems actually are thus it is important to examine this metabolic end product in some detail. 

Celiac disease (celiac sprue) is an allergic inflammatory condition caused by poorly digested proline-rich sequences of wheat gluten and related proteins (p. 74). The disease is usually not recognized, but it may occur in 3% or more of the United States population. A T-cell response that causes destruction of the smaller intestinal mucosa, celiac disease is characterized by malabsorption and diarrhea. It can cause death by starvation. A primary target of the autoantibodies is a transglutaminase. ... 

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