Signs of malnutrition and starvation--reconstruction of nutritional life histories by serial isotopic analyses of hair

The diagnosis of starvation in children or adults is an important topic in paediatric and geriatric medicine, and in law assessment. To date, few reliable techniques are available to reconstruct the onset and duration of undernourishment, especially in cases of wilful neglect or abuse. The intention of this research project is to introduce a method based on isotopic analysis to reconstruct nutritional life histories and to detect starvation. For this purpose the specific signature of stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes in human hair samples is investigated and measured in the course of serious nutritional deprivation. Previous study of our research group on anorectic patients has shown that incremental hair analyses can monitor the individual nutritional status of each patient. Increasing δ(15)N-values indicate the catabolism of bodily protein and are associated with a very low BMI. In contrast, the changes of the δ(13)C values and BMI were in phase, which can be linked to the lack of energy in the consumed diet and the break down of body fat deposits. These findings were now applied to various forensic cases, in which severe starvation occurred recently prior to death. We are aiming at establishing an unbiased biomarker to identify the individual timeframe of nutritional deprivation to detect and prevent starvation.