Geophagia
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The ancient earth-eating practice known as geophagia has popped up numerous times in history and has of course been incorporated into diet woo.
Sketchy "health" stores tend to sell jars of clay, and Animal Planet was happy to advertise for them when their oddity show was talking about macaws.[1] Macaws, unlike humans, actually have a digestive system designed for eating clay.
On of the more recent incarnations of geophagia, the Clay Cleanse Diet (CCD) is an alternative medicine fad diet that claims that ingesting clay can reduce weight and remove toxins and surfaced around 2014 as a potential weight loss method.
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[edit] Effectiveness
[edit] Weight loss
CCD itself is probably effective at weight loss. The clay does expand in the stomach, and will make people feel significantly more constipated less hungry. Users of the diet claim to have lost 10 pounds over 10 days.[2] If you wish to lose weight with a quick time scale but comparable health risks, you might consider removing unnecessary limbs or deliberately losing blood.
[edit] Cleansing
As a cleanser clay removes absolutely nothing "toxins" from the body by doing stuff. The users of this diet fail to present any scientific evidence that it removes "toxins" from the body, or what those toxins are, as is typical for "cleansing" claims. Kaolinite and montmorillonite clays have been shown to adsorb heavy metals in vitro, not in humans specifically.[3]
[edit] Things claimed to be caused by a dirty colon
Things claimed to be caused by a dirty colon include
- Constipation, which is
ironic since the diet itself probably causes itdefinitely true[4] - Bladder and kidney infections
which have nothing to do with the colon[4] - Vaginal Yeast infections (wtf how does that work)[4]
- Bad breath and body odor
Probably caused by eating clay.[4] -
Pregnancy (even in males)Abdominal cramps[4] - Toe and fingernail fungus[4]
-
lack ofabundance of anatomical knowledge [4] - Spontanious appearance of Goat within your immediate vicinity.
[edit] Safety
CCD itself is not safe and should be avoided. It can potentially contain high levels of heavy metals, soil-based pathogens (nematodes and microbes), can block your colon, and can damage your stomach and intestines.[2][5]
[edit] Other Geophagia
[edit] Basic sustenance in poverty
Poor (dirt-poor?) Haitians sometimes eat a yellow dirt with added salt and vegetable shortening because they can not afford rice.[6][7] This way starving to death is less of a painful experience, and takes a long enough time that someone might notice their plight.
This should not be confused with pica,[wp] a condition characterized by an urge to eat soil (among other non-nutritive things, such as sand and utensils) due to chemical imbalance, neurological response to iron deficiency, etc., and is particularly common among small children, pregnant women, and those with developmental disabilities.
[edit] Other animals
Many animals eat dirt, primarily to get missing nutrients (especially salt). Confined farm animals are especially prone to geophagia, and goats are reported to suffer from gastro-intestinal lesions from geophagia.[8]
[edit] See also
[edit] Footnotes
- ↑ The Most Extreme - Ep 23 - Eaters. The... narrator... was... most... enthused...
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Cue hilarious SCARY Daily Mail headline. (Sorry about linking to the Daily Heil, but this is their specialty and no serious scientists seem to have wasted their time on this bit of woo so far.)
- ↑ Adsorption of a few heavy metals on natural and modified kaolinite and montmorillonite: A review by Krishna Gopal Bhattacharyyaa & Susmita Sen Guptab (Volume 140, Issue 2, 5 August 2008, Pages 114–131). Advances in Colloid and Interface Science doi:10.1016/j.cis.2007.12.008
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 http://www.alive.com/articles/view/17406/the_best_colon-cleansing_diet This site is ridiculous
- ↑ Geophagy and potential health implications: geohelminths, microbes and heavy metals by R. Kutalek et al. Trans R Soc Trop Med Hyg. 2010 Dec;104(12):787-95. doi: 10.1016/j.trstmh.2010.09.002.
- ↑ Poor Haitians Resort to Eating Dirt
- ↑ If You Can't Afford Rice In Haiti, You Eat Dirt
- ↑ Small ruminant research and development in Africa: Proceedings of the Second Biennial Conference of the African Small Ruminant Research Network. AICC, Arusha, Tanzania, 7-11 December 1992 (1994) p. 140. ISBN 929053284X.