Mamata’s fast raises medical brows

City doctors are flummoxed as it is nearly impossible to carry on for 24 days without electrolytic inputs

Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee completed her 24th day of fasting on Wednesday. And this has confused medical practitioners in the Kolkata. Is Mamata’s constitution a rarest of rare case?

City-based renowned gynaecologist, Dr Pradyut Sur, said a normal person can continue fasting without major complications for three to five days, depending upon his or her constitution. “In which case, the basic electro-reserves in the body helps the fasting person to sustain during that period of time,” Sur said.

However, according to him, the condition would start deteriorating from the sixth or seventh day because of this electrolyte imbalance. “The basic symptoms then would be sharp fall in blood-pressure and blood-sugar levels, weakness, muscle cramps and finally the non-functioning of brain. The non-functioning of the brain would be due to lack of supply of electro fluid,” Sur said.

Sur further pointed out that these complications can be avoided if the fasting person consumes certain electrolytic liquid food, which acts as the substitute of regular meal and helps in balancing the electrolytic imbalance arising out of fasting. “Unless the fasting person consumes such electrolytic liquid food there is bound to be degradation in his or her health condition and this degradation symptoms would be apparent from the sixth or seventh day of fasting,” Sur said.

He said whether the fasting person has consumed any electrolytic liquid food or not can be detected through blood or urine test. Incidentally, Mamata has refused to allow the team of medical practitioners sent by the state government to attend her. Her contention was that she would not accept any hospitality offer from the state government against whom she is agitating.

The first symptom of degradation of Mamta’s health condition was first witnessed on Tuesday when she completed her 23rd day of fasting and she had to be provided with oxygen support for the first time.

Confirming that this the first major incident in her health condition requiring oxygen support, Mamta’s confidante, Dr Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, said she was suffering from breathing problem on Tuesday due to sharp fall in blood pressure level. “So she had to be provided with oxygen support,” Ghosh Dastidar said. 

However, city-based general physician S Sengupta feels that this requirement of oxygen support is generally felt after the ninth or tenth day of fasting if there is absolutely no food intake, which is called “nothing per mouth” in medical terms. “Mamta was looking quite vibrant. At the same time I would like to say that there are many miracles that have no definition in medical science,” Sengupta said.

When told there had been many prior instances of long fasting, Sengupta said: “My comments are based on the generally accepted definitions of medical science, which also have exceptions”.