Study Shows Cannibalism Unsustainable, Leads to Population Collapse

Researchers Michał Misiak of the University of Wrocław and Petr Tureček of Charles University in Prague published a mathematical‑model study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The model compares the caloric benefits of human flesh with hidden epidemiological costs, showing that regular cannibalism rapidly spreads pathogens, especially prion diseases such as kuru, and drives population decline. The practice is only viable under extreme food scarcity, when the consumed bodies are already dead, and when meat can be safely cooked, but even then the risk of disease transmission quickly outweighs any nutritional gain. The study cites the Fore people of Papua New Guinea, whose ritual cannibalism led to a deadly kuru epidemic that subsided after the practice ended.