[1] Courts in the United States[2] generally do not recognize prisoners as having a right to die by voluntary dehydration, since they view it as suicide.
Those who die by terminal dehydration typically lapse into unconsciousness before death, and may also experience delirium and altered serum sodium.
Patients with edema tend to take longer to die of dehydration because of the excess fluid in their bodies.
[11] One survey of hospice nurses in Oregon (where physician-assisted suicide is legal) found that nearly twice as many had cared for patients who chose voluntary refusal of food and fluids to hasten death as had cared for patients who chose physician-assisted suicide.
Members of the Buddhist Sokushinbutsu sect of Japan historically practiced a form of self-mummification which in part was achieved by the forgoing of all food and liquid until death.