Could Humans Hibernate?
aeon.co
aeon.co
What I think wasn't addressed in this article is how a lack of physical activity may affect a human body, or how animals that do hibernate adapt to a loss of muscle mass.
Most animals are stronger by weight than humans, so perhaps this isn't as much of an issue for them.
As far as I know, most animals don't have to train to gain muscle mass, they just have it from their nutrition, losing muscle mass is a last resort of their bodies to consume calories during starvation but they will gain that muscle mass back if fed properly. Not so much with humans, we need to constantly use our muscles to signal our bodies they're needed, as an adaptation if those aren't needed we will not be carrying extra muscle mass around.
I might be wrong since the last I read about this was many years ago but it's how I remember it from studies of great apes, big cats, etc.
Did a quick google. This stackexchange answer has some interesting points: https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/98207/do-animal-...