system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
How does the body react to food after prolonged food deprivation. Will eating even a normal portion of food cause stomach aches or other adverse reactions?
gpt
Food stimulates the pancreas to produce a hormone called insulin. This hormone has various functions, including lipogenesis (creation of fat) and glycogenesis (storage of sugar in the form of glycogen). Some resources are needed in order to make these processes happen, but a prolonged period of fasting depletes the body of them. So, in the end, the cells “pull” too much of those minerals from the blood, causing low phosphate presence in blood (hypophosphatemia), low potassium (hypokalemia), and others. That usually leads to various cardiac and neurological problems.
This is referred to as refeeding syndrome, and has been documented for a long time throughout history.