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There is such a thing as "protein poisoning". THis occurs when one's body is attempting to metabolize protein as a source of energy while the individual's fluid intake is too low. Our bodies require huge amounts of water when metabolizing protein. It usually only occurs during times of extreme famine, but it can also happen if your diet is way heavy on meat and low on everything else. It can cause organ damage and in extreme cases, death.

Primitive people, such as american plains indians, knew that during times of drought when all the grazing animals are skin and bones, you do not eat them when they are in this condition. This is because their bodies are wasted away to the point of being pure bone, sinew, and protein. If you were starving to death and water was scarce and you ate one of these animals, you'd be lucky to live another day. You would die of protein poisoning. Instead, what they did during these times was to look around for a pregnant animal and then eat the fetus. Even when the mother is starving, the fetus would have body fat so eating the fetus would not result in protein poisoning.

Right now I am working in a situation were the BUN (Blood Urea Nitrogen) levels have a very narrow window for error (due to psyche meds etc) Even a slightly high BUN can exacerbate psychotic behaviors.

I am used to dialysis/critical care where a BUN would get up in the 40's-50's and we just pushed fluids and hoped for the best. Heck, we even had a few dead men walking with BUN's in the 125's.

In this setting, a BUN of 35 (the norm being 25) will cause an automatic reduction in protein in the diet.

And then there are those with liver failure...same story, differnt reasons.