Sometimes, it seems there's no limit to what the Chinese won't consume and justify it by touting health benefits. Today's episode begins some of the most extreme of these examples since it involves like, eating humans. Sorry if I put you into PTSD with the below image, probably too late for a proper warning. Oops!

Placentophagy

_{Yummy yum yum}

The placenta is the temporary organ that grows in the uterus to provide the fetus with nutrients and oxygen.

Eating human placenta. Waste not, want not, right? This has been the case of most mammals in history; give birth to the child and gobble up the very nutritious placenta to get your strength back. If this was the end of the story, I might have some grounds to shrug and move on.

But the consumption of dried, human placenta according to TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) will:

_{Cure impotence in men, infertility in women, coughs, asthma, depression, reduce pain, promotes skin elasticity, enhances maternal bonding, cures insomnia, cracked feet, prevents baldness, improved lactation, replenish hormones, facilitate uterine contraction...}

You know, an omni-cure, like everything else in TCM! (I should note that this is growing in popularity in the west, too. Typically among white, married, middle class mothers)

Amazingly, once again, studies have been required to see if this is actually something we should or shouldn't do.

Unsurprisingly, after reviewing ten such studies, researchers found no health benefits. Fancy that eh?

Furthermore, in a study called Placentophagy: therapeutic miracle or myth?, reviewing positive research, the researchers found numerous problems, stating that the studies do not conform to current scientific standards.

When looking at a study on improving lactation, which showed vaguely positive results, they point out:

...other confounding factors (i.e., natural variations in the development of milk production within days after giving birth, whether mothers were taking medications, placebo effects, effects of participating in a study) were not controlled. It is also important to note that no other studies investigating the effects of placentophagy on lactation in humans were found.

After looking at numerous human and animal trials looking at various health benefit claims, they concluded that:

Based on the studies reviewed, it is not possible to draw any conclusions relevant to human health

Let's look at another one.

in Exploring Placentophagy in Humans: Problems and Recommendations, they point out just how much ignorance regarding placental ingestion there actually is:

...the exact properties of the human placenta after birth must be identified—as well as the impact that cooking, drying, and storing has on the nutritional properties.

This is more shocking than you might think at first. People are eating their own placentas after being treated in various ways, even though nobody actually has a clue as to its physical properties by the time it reaches your mouth:

Whereas there are several research studies examining perceptions of placentophagy, virtually no studies have explored the effects of placentophagy on humans.

Without any science, investigation, evidence people are taking the word of TV proponents, mid-wives and friends and gobbling it down. You know what comes next?

The placebo effect!

I might start a campaign promoting mid-day suffocation to enhance maternal bonding and hair thickness.

And that's the thing. There are so few studies on this and so many flaws and bias towards benefits in those that exist that there's actually nothing out there providing any evidence of risk. The potential side effects are entirely unknown, yet women are willing to just go for it because a nice person said so. In fact, in 2014, a company that sells placental smoothies (jesus christ) was shut down due to potential bacterial contamination, with the defense exclaiming:

The law does not need to step in and protect people when what they are eating is a product of themselves

Right...

Stop eating yourself, people.

Moving on, perhaps drinking yourself might help instead?

Urophagia, or 'Urine Therapy'

_{Some folk have been drinking their own pee for decades}

Well, giving it a name like that makes it seem not so bad, don't you agree? On top of that, Urine is sterile, so there's nothing to worry about anyway.

Except... it's not sterile. I mean, have you ever had a UTI? Do you know what an infection is? bacteria! There is indeed plenty of bacteria in Urine, even in healthy people, and there's no saying whether it's good or bad stuff.

Additionally, even a healthy person has a lot of salt in their urine, meaning you're essentially forcing your kidney to work double to re-filter crap it doesn't need to. And you're just dehydrating yourself.

Basically, the substance is 95% water, and 5% stuff that ain't that good for you and the body is trying to get rid of. You know, the reason urine exists?

This is not some small clique. Not only is the practice found all over the place including India, but in China, the 'China Urine Therapy Association' boasted 100,000 members before the government actually stepped in and banned the practice.

According to ancient Chinese medical texts, the best think to do is to drink the urine of virgin, 10-year old boys. Taking this to heart, a city called Dongyang in the Zhejiang Province have a popular delicacy, tongzidan (童子蛋), or 'Virgin boy eggs'. A delicacy.

Now, I don't think I need to repeat myself on digging into studies and finding the lack of benefits, or discuss just how many conditions are said to be cured by this, needless to say, if the Chinese government has banned it, there ain't much to it.

The worst part is that those TCM practices that promote this typically aim for more gullible and weak elderly folk, increasing all kinds of risks we have yet to fully research with modern standards of science.

It's all very well practicing placebo psychology on patients and getting very real results from that, but it's another thing to actually encourage people to put potential poisons such as dirty placentas and waste products from your bowels into your gut again. Just because something sounds potential in principle doesn't make it so. It's astonishing how people don't get that yet, in 2017.

But hey, we're only part way down the rabbit hole. More to come!

Sources: _{Placenta Podcast | Placentophagy: Miracle or Myth? | Exploring Placentophagy in Humans: Problems and
Recommendations | Placental smoothie case | Virgin boy eggs}

All Images CC0 Licensed