![]() Previously, scientists had suggested people practice pica for two reasons: to fulfill a deficiency of trace minerals in their diet and to cleanse and deworm the intestinal tract. (Explore an interactive of the human body.) And many believed that pica would bring good luck for better overall health. Many people reported eating nonfoods for their healing powers, especially for stomach troubles, Golden said. For adult men alone, that number was 63 percent.īucking the stereotype, less than one percent of nonpregnant women said they ate any nonfoods only during pregnancy. More than 53 percent of the survey respondents reported engaging in pica. The study subjects-male and female-identified eating 13 nonfood substances, including sand, soil, chicken feces, uncooked rice, raw cassava root, charcoal, salt, and ash, according to the new report, which appeared Wednesday in the journal PLOS ONE. (See Madagascar pictures from National Geographic magazine.) Golden and colleagues-advised by Cornell nutritional anthropologist Sera Young-surveyed pica behaviors in a random sample of 760 people in 16 villages of Madagascar's Makira Protected Area in 2009. "Personally, I think the work is pioneering," she said, because it reveals "such a high prevalence of pica in men and also found no significant differences with women." "Traditionally studies of geophagy and pica have focused on describing the prevalence in children and pregnant women," López wrote in an email, which has been translated from Spanish. Pica researcher Laura Beatriz López, nutrition director at the University of Buenos Aires, agreed. ![]() (National Geographic News is part of the Society.) "My guess, which is not substantiated, is that prior research study designs may have ignored men in their study samples as an artifact of studying pregnant women," said study author Christopher Golden, an eco-epidemiologist and National Geographic Society Conservation Trust grantee. So why this sudden appearance of pica-practicing men? (See "Stop Food Cravings Through Imaginary Eating?") In fact, the men in the study ate nonfood items at least as much as pregnant women and adolescents, whom previous case studies had shown to be the main pica practitioners. A new study reveals a surprising incidence of pica-craving and consuming nonfood substances-among men.Ĭonducted in Madagascar, where pica is common, the research is the first to identify a population where the practice is highly prevalent among men, the scientists say. Turns out pregnant women aren't the only ones who eat dirt.
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