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If humans were able to sleep that long at [reported 50 calories per hour](https://www.sleepfoundation.org/how-sleep-works/how-your-body-uses-calories-while-you-
by miga 6y ago
If humans were able to sleep that long at [reported 50 calories per hour](https://www.sleepfoundation.org/how-sleep-works/how-your-body-uses-calories-while-you-sleep https://www.sleepfoundation.org/how-sleep-works/how-your-bod...), that would give a three months energy expenditure of about 59kg of body fat ([at 7.7kJ/kg](https://www.quora.com/How-many-calories-are-in-1-kg-of-fat https://www.quora.com/How-many-calories-are-in-1-kg-of-fat)).
However, I am not aware of any confirmation that sleeping so long is possible, and does not harm health.
If there was indeed possibility to enter torpor in a controlled manner, that may be up to 88% energy saving, so only ~7kg of body fat would need to be used.
- vbezhenar 6y agoI don't think that this method is practical. You need to eat a lot of food to get 59 kg of body fat. It's easier to conserve that food and just eat it at winter. Food conservation was practically a solved problem for a long time, you just have to get that food in the first place. Those who die because of starvation usually did not have enough food to begin with (because of bad harvest, for example).
- ericbarrett 6y agoWouldn't it be more likely that such hibernation (if real) was during the 8-10 coldest weeks of the year (Dec-Jan depending on location)? That would make it on the order of ~23kg which is a much more reasonable amount of fat to store. Six months seems like a very long time for anywhere south of the Arctic Circle.