Canadian biochemist probing health benefits of eating mucus

Hi all

Well seemingly it may actually be beneficial to us to eat our own boogies..!

I have wondered whether ingesting your own nasal mucus is actually a good thing.. Especially seeing as our nose hairs catch all the germs and if ingested may help to make our immune systems a little stronger.

A Canadian scientist is looking to pick students willing to pick their noses — for research purposes, that is.

Nature World News reported on Thursday that biochemist Scott Napper’s goal is to determine whether eating one’s own mucus can provide health benefits.

Specifically, Napper wants to test the theory that eating consuming boogers helps train the body’s immune system to withstand the germs carried within.

www.rawstory.com...

I shall be keeping an eye on this one. It will be interesting to see what the conclusion of the results will be.. My partner eats his boogers as he has always been under the opinion that it is a good thing.. And is a way of helping our bodies get to grips with dealing with all the naughty unwanted germs...

It would be a fun experiment to participate in..! Lol

Peace
fluff

Of course it takes a Canadian to do this type of research, am I right fellas

Seriously though, I read a news story last year about another study that sugests letting your kids eat stuff that has droped on the floor. If a toddler drops their teething rusk etc. then we should let them pick it up and put it back in their mouths to help kickstart their immune systems. I think kids are grotty enough without all of that.

reply to post by LeLeu



I am a believer in this.

When my son was young I had shingles. So we did our darndest to make sure he got chicken pox.

But still today, I follow reasonable measures....but am no germophobe. My reasoning is that when you lift weights, you get stronger. when you study, you get smarter. So why would the immune system not benefit from some exercise, too?

Eating mucus is not gross to a kid till we tell them it is. If you pick something off the floor quickly, there's no harm in eating it. As long as the floor is clean that is. All the anti bacterial soaps, hand sanitizer and the like, is doing more harm than good. All the bugs just get stronger and more resistant. The over prescribing of antibiotics has lead to MRSA. Let your kids get dirty and eat a dropped cookie. Hasn't hurt mine.

reply to post by DAVID64


It does no harm to a child to get some germs in 'em..! They need it..

My uncle has 2 boys and when they were little the parents refused to put the kids on the floor in my aunty's house because they had a dog and were scared that the kids would catch something..

They house was completely sterile aswell. And the funny thing was my 2 cousins were constantly full of colds and snivels and chest infections because they were not exposed to any germs..!

There's probably a great deal of truth to this. The mucus being the body's filter, whatever gets stuck in it & subsequently ingested is being introduced, broken down, and likely "logged" in the immune system, if you will.

My kids have consistently picked their noses since they first shoved a finger up there in exploration. Maybe it's no coincidence that they've never been truly sick? Seasonal sniffles aside, that is. And even then, the seasonal ills have never been really too bad on them.

Hooray for digging for nose gold!

SnF. There is a lot to this. The mucus that we secrete often helps us fight infections. It contains special repair hormones. Most human secretions do this to a certain extent. Look at the medicines created from horse urine.

I don't think it is a good thing to try to stop every runny nose from happening and worry about swallowing some of this mucus. Treating the symptoms may be bad, it could sometimes cause a longer and more severe illness. Trouble is how do we know what is good or bad I can't seem to find any research that comes to a conclusion, they always end in "this needs more research" which is not done. Maybe it has been done off the books but we are not allowed to know.

reply to post by rickymouse

I don't think it is a good thing to try to stop every runny nose from happening and worry about swallowing some of this mucus. Treating the symptoms may be bad, it could sometimes cause a longer and more severe illness. Trouble is how do we know what is good or bad I can't seem to find any research that comes to a conclusion, they always end in "this needs more research" which is not done. Maybe it has been done off the books but we are not allowed to know.

Yeah I have been trying to find something also. But it has not come to any fruition whatsoever. My boyfriend had said that he was sure there was a peer reviewed paper on it awhile back. I will ask him to see if he can find it...!

And it would not surprise if the research has already been done but is just not published.. God forbid we should make our immune systems strong without the need for paying for harmful drugs that do it for us, but also detriment different bodily systems/functions..

I think this was a known knowledge Hahaha...

When i did my major in Microbiology, my prof told... "your boogers are the earliest known Vaccine"

It is true when you look at it... Your booger has antimicrobial factors, when Bactria get caught in the mucus in your nose and throat, they will dry and become boogers, but still contain the foreign particles. When you ingest it, you ingest a partially dead or dead microbes, so your body can "dissect" and "learn" how to be ready for the real attack.

We have to understand when we are "inclined" to pick our nose and eat it... it may seem and not fit out current society but, it is natural.

and Nature is always unbiased, how bad and uncomfortable it might seem.

reply to post by fluff007


Bromelaine in pineapple and grapefruit can help to break up mucus and can also help break up the coating that protects some sort of tumors from our immune system identifying and destroying them. It is really heat sensitive, being denatured at about a hundred twenty degrees if I remember. A little remains in grapefruit and pineapple juice though. Bromelaine is used in cottage cheese and beer clarifying also, so both may contain a little of it. It is similar to lactilase. The lactilase in milk is destroyed by pasteurization, that is why milk rarely curdles anymore when it gets old. I'm not sure that that is good.