How long could you survive without food or water?

How long can a human survive without food or water? In theory, when you finally run out of body fat, protein and carbohydrates, your body runs out of energy and stops functioning.

The longest recorded starvation was by the Irish hunger-striker Kieran Doherty in 1981, who died after fasting for 73 days. With a supply of vitamins and water, people have been known to survive over a year without eating. “It used to be a very fashionable way of losing weight around 30 years ago,” says Powell-Tuck. A human can be expected to survive for weeks without food, but a thirsty person deprived of water would last a matter of days.