Warning: This topic might be found distasteful by some.
Scott Napper, a Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Saskatchewan, is in the process of determining whether the practice of mucophagy may have some benefits for the immune system.
Mucophagy sometimes follows rhinotillexomania. otherwise known as nose-picking, for some people. In more usual language, rarely among the Hamptons set, this is referred to as snot-eating or booger-eating. Research indicates that about seven out of ten people engage in nose-picking, and three out of ten subsequently consume the extracted mucus.
Grrrrr-osssss!
Anyway, the notion is that the deposits in the nostrils contain small amounts of pathogens; and consuming small doses of them by consuming boogers may actually have a beneficial effect on the immune system by exposing them to small, managable amounts of these pathogens. This is a kind of desensitization process.
His planned experiment is very straightforward: he plans to use two groups of volunteers: those who would eat their own boogers, and the other who would abstain from doing so.
I admit that I'm not that committed to science that I would serve as an experimental group subject!
It's obvious that snot gets no respect. To describe someone as snotty is perjorative, whether in the literal or the figurative sense.
Then we also have that ominous figure, the Boogerman or bogeyman, used by some adults to ensure children's compliant behavior. Does the Boogerman live in Boogertown, TN or Boogertown, NC? Does he engage in mucophagy? I am curious.
Can we expect someday that some health-conscious individual will propose Booger Supplements and have these sold in the homeopathic medicine stores? Silly goose -- after all, boogers are readly available! But homeopathy has widespread acceptance by the New Age roll-your-own health crowd despite no scientific support for its efficacy.
13 comments:
When I first started teaching, I kept a daily count of the nose-pickers in class. College males were running at about 40%, females at 30%. Rhinotillexomania in a real setting.
It's disconcerting when this is a public event.
There may be something to Napper's notion, after all.
The persistence of that disgusting practice is one hallmark of lackadasical parenting so common nowadays.
I refuse to comment on a blog post about boogers. Snot nice.
nope. couldn't read thru this. stomach turned at the onset...
This was all foretold by the famous medieval seer, Nostrildamus. Sorry.
Whatever the activity someone will always make a contest about it. If you search "booger eating contest" on google you will get 15,000 hits.
Maybe that is the reason why the process is so widely practiced.
I found the topic to be different, if disturbing.
I think that I overstepped the bounds of good taste. I will try better in the future.
I think it's a scream that someone is actually doing research of this type. I wonder who was the grantor supporting this research?
I remember being told about the boogerman.
Wait'll you read about fecal transplants! LOL
Say, I just wised up and added you to my blogroll.
Despite the topic of this post. . . .
ALOHA from Honolulu
Comfort Spiral
=^..^= <3
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