Navy Commander at the base, Robert Durand, said the growing number of hunger strikers was an "attention-getting" move that may be related to a May 18 clash between 10 detainees and 10 US military guards in which six detainees were injured.
The same day, two detainees also overdosed on antidepressant drugs they had been hoarding. They have since regained consciousness.
"The hunger strike technique is consistent with al-Qaeda practice and reflects detainee attempts to elicit media attention to bring international pressure on the United States to release them back to the battlefield," Mr Durand said.
He said 74 of the new protesting inmates were still drinking liquid but that a lone new hunger-striker had required an "enteral feeding regimen", a forced-feeding system.
Under such a technique, US military personnel insert a feeding tube into an inmate's stomach through the nose in order to force-feed the captive.
Mr Durand told the Miami Herald that none of the hunger strikers were in immediate danger.
Many inmates have been held for up to four years, most without charge. A group of 76 detainees began a hunger strike in August last year to protest their indefinite confinement.
A month later the number of hunger strikers grew to 131, according to the military, but dwindled to just three earlier this year.
Defence lawyers said many detainees dropped out of the protest because the military adopted more aggressive measures to force feed them using a special restraint chair. The military called the measures "safe and humane".
Civilian lawyers who have visited the camp say there is widespread depression among the 460 inmates.
During a disturbance at the facility earlier this month, inmates staged a fake suicide bid to lure US guards into a trap and then attacked them with fan blades and other improvised weapons.
The US military holds about 460 men at Guantanamo on suspicion of links to al-Qaeda or the Taliban.
They include Australian terror suspect David Hicks, however his legal representatives earlier this year said he was not involved in the hunger strike.
Human rights groups say many innocent people have been swept up in the Bush administration's war against terrorism and sent to Guantanamo Bay, with no end in sight to their incarceration.
Only 10 of the detainees have been charged with crimes, including Mr Hicks. Their military trials, the first held by the United States since the World War II era, are set to begin within months.
The US Supreme Court, however, is expected to rule in June on whether President George W Bush overstepped his authority by ordering war-crimes trials for some of those held at Guantanamo Bay.
The United Nations and the British government's top legal advisor have urged the Bush administration to close the camp.