Tasty ... Source: ThinkStock
DURING a recent interview with beauty blog and apparent disseminator of wacky health tips, Into The Gloss, actor Shailene Woodley described clay as "one of the best things you can put into your body." Her evidence? A friend had metallic-smelling bowel movements after eating clay — a sure sign, Woodley claims, of heavy metals leaving the body.
The star of upcoming film Divergent also recalled a time a cab driver told her that pregnant women in his community (we do not know where, he is referred to only as "African") ate clay — a practice known to researchers as 'geophagy'. Perhaps her driver was referring to the uncommon pica cravings some pregnant women experience. Or the practice in some indigenous communities, where food sources are scarce, of eating soil as a nutrient supplement.
"This is a practice in some indigenous cultures, and I think that probably came about because they did not have access to certain nutrients in their diet, like calcium from dairy, or iron, and there are some minerals in dirt or clay," explained Today Show contributor and gastroenterologist Dr. Roshini Raj.
Indeed, women in communities that don't include calcium-rich dairy in their diets are more likely to eat clay, research suggests.
Actor Shailene Woodley attends the Marie Claire & The Cinema Society screening of Divergent. Source: Getty Images
But there are better ways to get calcium, iron and minerals, doctors agree. And while eating clay is mostly harmless, there are some concerns about both a pregnant woman and her foetus, actually being exposed to arsenic, lead and other toxins that naturally occur in soil. The same goes for people who aren't expecting.
That's the opposite of the intended effect of so-called "healing clays," which are taking off as a bit of a wellness trend, to remove toxins, heavy metals, impurities, and chemicals that are thought to have been ingested. While there is some evidence that clays can help remove toxicants from food sources when used in a culinary context, there is no substantial medical evidence that these clays, including popular bentonite clay, remove toxins.
And, anyway, most people don't need help in this regard: Our livers and kidneys, if healthy, are perfectly capable of clearing our systems of trace amounts of "impurities" from our environments. In other words, the body is able to "detoxify" all on its own — pretty cool, right?
The actor went on to explain further:
"So, I've discovered that clay is great for you because your body doesn't absorb it, and it apparently provides a negative charge, so it bonds to negative isotopes. And, this is crazy: it also helps clean heavy metals out of your body. My friend starting eating it and the next day she called me and said, 'Dude, my sh*t smells like metal.' She was really worried, but we did some research together and everything said that when you first start eating clay, your bowel movements, pee, and even you, yourself, will smell like metal."
Maggie Q as Tori and Shailene Woodley as Beatrice "Tris" Prior, in the film, "Divergent." Source: AP
"Removing metal from the body is not necessarily good — iron, for example, is a metal and essential to health. So, there could conceivably be benefits, but there could certainly be harms — and a favourable benefit/harm ratio has not been established to justify recommending this," says Dr. David L. Katz, M.D., MPH, FACPM, FACP, a HuffPost blogger and founding director of the Prevention Research Center at Yale University. Katz additionally called Woodley's assertion about the negative charge of clay "meaningless."
We don't mean to harp on the actor, whose layperson experiments are her own business. But given the reach of celebrity health claims, combined with their lack of expertise and occasionally harmful — even deadly — consequences, it's important to address what's informed and based in fact and what's merely the opinion of a non-medical professional.
For a thorough debunking of Woodley's health assertions, head over to TODAY.com.
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