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The mutant strain found in the UK is in Italy which likely means it is in France already as well.

What does caffeine do? It stimulates smooth muscle contraction which is why if you drink too much coffe you get diarrhea. Why? The job of the intestines is to recycle water. The kidneys controlblood pressure and so modulate thrist to get you to drink so you won't get hypovolemic (low blood volume) and hypotension (low blood pressure). The intestines absorb water through villi. Caffeine accelerates the process causing watery stools.

If a person has no caffeine, besides headaches, their bowel are upset as their gut motility returns to normal as the smoth muscle is no longer stimulated.

With reduced food, then it becomes harder and harder to pass a bowel movement as so little food is moving through the digestive system.

Say a patient has cancer. You never halt fluids, but when dying, sometimes people stop eating, first because losing bowel control and pain from obstruction from so little stimulation as they ingest little.

In a worse case starvation situation, the patients who are young will get kwaishiokor and the adults get marasmus. Their livers stop producing enzymes and so have gut leakage and cannot properly digest food. The kids will get distended bellies and it may be painful. The adults tend o look drawn and gaunt. They will probably have gut pain as well.

Simple fasting is not starvation.