Woman suffers permanent brain damage after 15-day water-only fast, loses 20kg

A 31-year-old woman from Henan province in central China has been left with a serious, possibly permanent, brain disorder after undertaking a 15-day water-only fast that saw her lose 20kg, SCMP.

According to the SCMP report, the woman, who has chosen to remain unnamed, began experiencing difficulty walking and a decline in memory function after consuming nothing but water for a fortnight. Standing 160cm tall, she had weighed 70kg before the fast, shedding the weight within a matter of weeks through the extreme regimen.

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Diagnosed with rare brain disorder linked to vitamin deficiency

Neurologist Sun Guifang of The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University diagnosed the woman with Wernicke's encephalopathy, a severe neurological condition caused by a deficiency in essential vitamins and folic acid, SCMP reported. The disorder can produce symptoms including confusion, difficulty maintaining balance while walking, abnormal eye movements and memory impairment.

Sun described the woman's altered gait as resembling that of a penguin, warning that this particular symptom may never fully resolve, according to SCMP. He attributed her condition directly to the extreme fasting, stressing that the human body depends on regular meals to obtain essential nutrients, and cautioned that both restrictive dieting and prolonged fasting carry serious health risks.

The Taoist practice of "bigu"

The woman told Sun that she had been practising "bigu," a Taoist fasting method rooted in the belief that abstaining from solid food allows a person to sustain themselves on "qi," the vital energy believed to flow through the universe, ultimately achieving transcendence and immortality. The term "bigu" translates literally to "grain avoidance" and is believed to date back to before the Qin dynasty (221 BC-206 BC), per SCMP.

Although contemporary weight-loss guidance generally recommends diets built around minimally processed foods, low in sugar and fat and high in protein, the report noted that many people continue to endorse bigu as an effective method for shedding weight and detoxifying the body. On one major social media platform, the hashtag #bigu has amassed 360 million views and generated 2.4 million discussions, SCMP reported.

Some users have described losing more than 10kg after a month of consuming only water and vitamin supplements, while other posts encourage practitioners to "absorb qi" through meditation in well-ventilated spaces, according to the report.

History of health complications and deaths linked to the practice

SCMP noted that bigu has repeatedly been linked to serious health complications and, in some cases, death. In 2020, a 26-year-old man from Heilongjiang province in northeastern China died after subsisting on only water for 52 days, developing dementia-like symptoms just two days before his death.

Separately, last year, a woman in Zhejiang province lost 5kg after a week of consuming nothing but water and an "energy pill," but the fast caused severe damage to her intestinal lining, triggering a bacterial infection in her bloodstream and life-threatening hypokalemia, per the report.

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Calls grow for a ban on such content

The report noted growing calls online for a ban on content promoting the practice. One commenter said, "Bigu is not traditional culture but an extremely unhealthy lifestyle." Another wrote, "I find these individuals ruthless. I can't even skip one meal in a day."