# Human autotrophs



## stalebait

Hello everyone! I am a new member but instead of introducing myself as I should I have a question and some things that I think would be nice to discuss.

My topic states human autotrophs, I was reading my biology book(college biology course) and was reading how on Earth there exists two different types of species on this planet(based on how they get energy), these of course are heterotrophs and autotrophs. Autotrophs are like plants, which get their own energy from the sun through photosynthesis which processes a huge amount of reactions. So upon reading this I decided to google whether or not humans can become autotrophs. Lone and behold I find stories of people who lived for 60 years without food or water, which makes me interested in how that is even possible(I'll link some stories and posts below of the ones I found).

So my general discussion is, what steps would you need to take to become an autotroph? I know a lot of articles state that you have to do slow periods of starvation and not all at once(Much like if you are addicted to cigarettes you would go off slowly not all at once). Also, would you become an autotroph? Why do you think its possible that humans are able to do this? 

My general hypothesis is that certain parts of our body are actually outfitted for making the specific vitamins and minerals for our body(that requires water, much like how you just add water to some foods). I'm thinking that without the stomach working, then the urine is being recycled and reused by certain parts of the body, water would obviously be taken in from the air, therefore they would be dependent on the cycles of weather. 




I would post sources, but I see I am unable to due to I have under 15 post count. My apologies to everyone. If you simply google, "human autotrophs" the first few links were what I was going to post as sources.


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## Grau the Great

stalebait said:


> Hello everyone! I am a new member but instead of introducing myself as I should I have a question and some things that I think would be nice to discuss.
> 
> My topic states human autotrophs, I was reading my biology book(college biology course) and was reading how on Earth there exists two different types of species on this planet(based on how they get energy), these of course are heterotrophs and autotrophs. Autotrophs are like plants, which get their own energy from the sun through photosynthesis which processes a huge amount of reactions. _*So upon reading this I decided to google whether or not humans can become autotrophs. Lone and behold I find stories of people who lived for 60 years without food or water, which makes me interested in how that is even possible(I'll link some stories and posts below of the ones I found).*_


Because if it's on the internet, it's definitely true :3


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## stalebait

I guess you do have a point there lol. Still, it interests me when I find things like this.


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## Red Panda

If these people really exist, don't you think that the scientific community would be all over them? They wouldn't go unnoticed... I don't know, sounds completely impossible as we lack the mechanisms to produce energy from the sun or air like they say.


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## hulia

It's bullshit, plain and simple.

Humans are heterotrophs, we cannot produce our own food from sunlight - in order to receive energy we need to eat other organisms. Ultimately, energy in living organisms is used or created at a molecular level. Organisms break down their food into molecules, and then use those molecules to create energy for respiration, or store it to build other molecules for growth. Also, we as humans, could never produce enough energy to sustain our bodies. An organism as complex as humans would not, even if your epidermis was covered with chloroplasts, produce enough energy for you to do what you do on daily basis.

Also, on another note, microbes (bacteria, archaea, protists, fungi, viruses) are essential to organisms. In fact, without microbes there wouldn’t be any other life on the planet, including us. For example, microbes in the ocean help produce the air we breathe, microbes in the soil help produce the food we eat, and microbes in our digestive system help process the food that we eat and make vitamins for us. Bacteria are a critical link not only for recycling dissolved organic matter, but also for converting organic carbon to inorganic carbon through metabolic processes such as respiration. Most heterotrophs create inorganic carbon in the form of CO2 through respiration, including humans. (The CO2 can then be used by autotrophs such as plants and cyanobacteria to create energy that helps fuel life for much of the rest of the planet.)


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