A sixty-year-old man in east China's Jiangxi Province claims that he has gradually
recovered from liposarcoma - malignant tumors found in the tissue
of fat cells - and stomach ulcers after eating sand for 18
years.
Sheng Shoudong, a cleaner at a food market in Shaxi town,
Shangrao City, began to eat about four spoonfuls of sand a day from
1988 after he read a newspaper article in a local newspaper about a
man who had recovered from cancer after eating sand.
"I suffered from the pain of the sarcomas and ulcer, and was
forced to give up my job. I badly needed a drastic remedy," said
Sheng said recently on Approaching Science, a program at
Channel 10 of China Central Television.
?
"I went down to the river and gathered up a bucket of sand. I
washed it with water from the nearby well and poured it into a
breakfast bowl. I ate a spoonful of the sand, washed it down with
water and then chewed through another. I actually really enjoyed
the taste," he said.
Two years later, tests showed that Sheng's tumors had shrunk and
he felt well enough to resume his work as a cleaner.
Sheng's neighbors in Xiangyang village were amazed to see his
new eating habit. "When we first saw Sheng washing sand by the
well, we thought he was a maniac. But as soon as we realized he was
getting better and returned to work, we were clamoring to find out
the secret recipe."
A recent health check at the Shangrao No.1 Hospital showed that
Sheng was in a good condition apart from suffering from a mild
gastric ulcer, renal problems and several small sarcomas.
"Sand can not provide nutrition or energy for the human body and
it would be unscientific to say that eating sand can cure sickness.
Anyway, eating clean sand certainly doesn't harm the alimentary
canal," said Zheng Yaoquan, dean of the hospital.
Some medical experts suspected Sheng might also suffer from
parorexia, an abnormal appetite that inspires a craving for items
unsuitable for eating.
(Xinhua News Agency January 22, 2007)