It's happened twice with my characters now. All of a sudden I'll no longer get any messages like "you feel tired, you feel hungry, you feel thirsty" etc. I can run from elektro all the way north and receive no status messages.
Sometimes when you relog your character just completely disappears, and sometimes it doesn't. The bug remains even if you do relog.
When this happens you can no longer gain energy/thirst or lose it.