A<unk>  is a widespread shortage of food that may apply to any faunal species, which phenomenon is usually accompanied by regional malnutrition, starvation, epidemic, and increased mortality.
Although most<unk> s coincide with regional shortages of food,<unk>  in some human populations has occurred amid plenty or on account of acts of economic or military policy that have deprived certain populations of sufficient food to ensure survival. Historically,<unk> s have occurred because of drought, crop failure, pestilence, and man-made causes such as war or misguided economic policies. Bad harvests, overpopulation, and epidemic diseases like the Black Death helped cause hundreds of<unk> s in Europe during the Middle Ages, including 95 in the British Isles and 75 in France.
During the 20th century, an estimated 70 million people died from<unk> s across the world, of whom an estimated 30 million died during the<unk>  of 1958–61 in China. The other most notable<unk> s of the century included the 1942–1945 disaster in Bengal,<unk> s in China in 1928 and 1942, and a sequence of man-made<unk> s in the Soviet Union, including the Holodomor, Stalin's<unk>  inflicted on Ukraine in 1932–33. A few of the great<unk> s of the late 20th century were: the Biafran<unk>  in the 1960s, the disaster in Cambodia in the 1970s, the Ethiopian<unk>  of 1983–85 and the North Korean<unk>  of the 1990s.<unk>  can be induced by a human population beyond the regional carrying capacity to provide food resources. An alternate view of<unk>  is a failure of the poor to command sufficient resources to acquire essential food (the "entitlement theory" of Amartya Sen), analyses of<unk>  that focused on the political-economic processes driving the creation of<unk> , an understanding of the complex reasons for mortality in<unk> s, an appreciation of the extent to which<unk> -vulnerable communities have well-developed strategies for coping with the threat of<unk> , and the role of warfare and terrorism in creating<unk> . Modern relief agencies categorize various gradations of<unk>  according to a<unk>  scale.
Many areas that suffered<unk> s in the past have protected themselves through technological and social development. The first area in Europe to eliminate<unk>  was the Netherlands, which saw its last peacetime<unk> s in the early 17th century as it became a major economic power and established a complex political organization. Noting that many<unk> s occur under dictatorship, colonial rule[citation needed], or during war, Amartya Sen has posited that no functioning democracy has suffered a<unk>  in modern times.
Famine
Thiol
Thiamin
Biotin
Heme
Flavin
Copper
Alkane