Voluntary total fasting: a challenge for the medical community.

A movement opposing the nuclear arms race asked for medical surveillance of four people intending to go without food for an unlimited period. The course of fasting was uneventful until day 28-35, when weight loss reached 18%. In one subject fasting was ended on day 38 owing to development of Wernicke's encephalopathy; the others agreed to suspend their fast by day 40. The presence of physicians, offered under defined conditions, may have contributed to the timely cessation of this protest.