Beneficial, or not?

**IMGreat101** · 12-28-11, 07:51 AM

I do not qualify as a test subject in this.

when people do this, does it reflect some kind of psychological or socio-cultural issue; or is there a biological reason why booger-eating could be beneficial?

What is snot? And why do some people eat it? - Boing Boing

This gives whole new meaning to "kicking the snot" out of someone.

**Shoestring** · 12-28-11, 07:59 AM

i guess i should tell the boys to eat away.......

**Odd** · 12-28-11, 08:27 AM

I'm not a MD, don't even play one on the TV. This self vaccination hypothesis, as they present it, doesn't ring true to me though. They suggest the weakened or dead micro-organisms reside in the small intestine for a long time thereby giving the immune system a prolonged period to adapt to them. Thing is, if the stomach acids are doing their jobs there wouldn't be consistent samples for the immune system to respond to, and without cause for alarm the system would ignore random RNA/DNA strands. The genetic history of the twelve cows in the patty, and don't forget the pickles, of each burger I eat must be quite taxing. Are our immune systems so inefficient they build resistance against every new sample that isn't causing any harm? Maybe, but I doubt it. Not going to school for another twelve years to find out though. Is there a doctor in the house?

Scraping the mucus membrane inside the nasal passage with the finger, especially finger nail, and forcing a great many identical samples, some live, most weak or dead, into the blood stream - now that does make sense to me. That's pretty much how smallpox vaccinations were done, except with bifurcated needles instead of chewed fingernails. If this is the case, picker/flickers and eaters should rate the same though.

Gross, but interesting.