A “biblical” cannibalism warning has gained new meaning after a 2026 modelling study found eating humans is biologically unsustainable, spreading deadly prion diseases
Long-term Cannibalism would kill off human populations, boffins believe. While human flesh can provide life-saving nutrients in the most extreme circumstances, relying on it long-term can spread incurable diseases, a new study has found.
Scientists say this makes it biologically non-viable and far outweighs the calorific benefits of eating another human. And they think Cannibalism’s taboo status in human societies may not stem from revulsion, but rather from its impact on populations.
Study author Petr Tureček said: “Our model clearly demonstrates that regular cannibalism is unsustainable for human populations in the long run. The epidemiological costs of spreading incurable diseases quickly outweigh any caloric benefits, reliably leading to community collapse.
”The cultural taboo therefore acts as an effective shield that protected our ancestors from this evolutionary trap.”
He and Dr Michał Misiak, both of Charles University in Czechia, used mathematical modelling to test what would happen if humans practised cannibalism regularly.
The researchers point especially to pathogens like heat-resistant prions – notorious for causing fatal brain diseases – as a key danger when humans eat humans.
In their paper, they say these constraints help explain cannibalism’s “episodic occurrence” and the widespread rise of powerful taboos, Science Alert reported.
They also stress that modelling individual “payoffs” like signalling, status or intergroup competition would need a different framework and is “beyond the scope” of this study – though they call it a promising direction for future research.
They found that cannibalism arises primarily from extreme, life-threatening starvation, mirroring biblical accounts of sieges where food supplies are nonexistent.
For example, Deuteronomy 28:53 warns that during siege and hardship people will “eat the fruit of your own womb”, and Leviticus 26:29 carries a similar warning. Prophets also use cannibalism as a brutal symbol of divine judgment and total social collapse.
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