Here is a horrible article at ABC News.
How Will Terri Schiavo Die?
The Body's Mechanisms for Allowing Death Can Be Very Peaceful
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Schiavo/story?id=531907&page=1
"The process of starving to death seems very barbaric but in actuality is very peaceful," said Dr. Fred Mirarchi, assistant clinical professor of emergency medicine at Drexel University College of Medicine in Philadelphia.
Some people can last four or five days — some people can last 20 days," she said.
"It depends on whether she has the ability to swallow anything — and if that anything is offered," she said. "If she's unable to swallow anything, the course toward dying, so far as anyone can tell, is fairly comfortable."
Most patients who cannot eat or drink will enter a physical state known as ketosis. During ketosis the body begins to use fat and muscle as a fuel source.
In advanced cases of ketosis, the nervous system response is dulled, and patients rarely feel pain, hunger or thirst. There is also some evidence that ketosis can produce a state of well-being or mild euphoria.
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But if we tried to starve criminals sentecned to death, as a method of execution, just watch all the same people scream what "cruel and unusual punishment" that is.
"WHAT HAPPENS to non-terminally ill people with cognitive disabilities whose feeding tubes are removed? Do they suffer from the process?"
"When I conducted research on this question in preparation for writing my book "Forced Exit," I asked St. Louis neurologist William Burke these very questions. Here is what he told me: "
A conscious [cognitively disabled] person would feel it just as you or I would. They will go into seizures. Their skin cracks, their tongue cracks, their lips crack. They may have nosebleeds because of the drying of the mucus membranes, and heaving and vomiting might ensue because of the drying out of the stomach lining. They feel the pangs of hunger and thirst. Imagine going one day without a glass of water! Death by dehydration takes ten to fourteen days. It is an extremely agonizing death. Dehydration article.
GRAPHIC PHOTOS OF A DEATH BY DEHYDRATION
Doctor details Scientologist's death
By CHERYL WALDRIP of The Tampa Tribune
Published in The Tampa Tribune Jan. 23, 1997
CLEARWATER - Medical tests indicate Lisa McPherson was without fluids for at least five to 10 days of her stay at the Church of Scientology's world spiritual headquarters.
Pinellas-Pasco Medical Examiner Joan Wood said it's possible McPherson, who died in December 1995, had nothing to drink throughout her 17-day stay at the Fort Harrison Hotel.
As disgusting goes, that one win a prize.