Alex Ritson

But so far, no meeting has taken place.

So just how dangerous are hunger strikes?

Dr Mike Strood is a professor of medicine and nutrition and a specialist on treating prisoners who are refusing food.

My colleague Evan Davis asked him how long the human body can survive not eating.

As long as you're getting liquids, you can withstand usually a minimum of 40 days.

You might die then if you have started off very thin.

Perhaps more usually it's 50 to 60 days and occasionally longer if you started off

overweight, although being overweight doesn't protect you quite as much as you might think.

And what is happening in those, let's say, 40, 50, 60 days as the body adapts to having no nutritional intake?

The body struggles to survive by shutting systems down.

And it starts doing that within three or four days, actually, but only at a slow rate and sort of choosing things that aren't essential.

But all systems are affected.

So your liver will stop processing things properly.

Your kidneys will begin to fail slowly.

Your heart will weaken.

Your immune system weakens so that you become increasingly vulnerable to getting infections.

And we kind of all carry infections around with us all the time so that they can get you in the end.

And your brain begins to shut down, too.

And you progress towards becoming immune.

well, you may be delirious or confused or actually lapse into a coma.