[@@ (OP)]

Jay Harrison asked the Naked Scientists:

hello Dr chris and all,
   
I've been listening to your science podcasts [nofollow] for a good while now and believe me nothing else comes even close to your great  show, it helps get me through the night shift.

Anyway, I've noticed that many primates, on the  telly and at the zoo, regularly pick their noses and eat it, and pretty well all  human children do the same but are eventually forced to stop the habit.

I  was wondering if this practice has any beneficial effects?

Yours Jay
   Solihull

What do you think?

[neilep]

Yummy !!....Hi Jay !!

I do ...there's nothing like a good old nasal content meal ! []

I really don't know if there are nay health benefits because intrinsically I think it's just nasal mucous and probably not considered a healthy diet......


Bets to wait and see what an ENT (Ear Nose and Throat) expert says !

[neilep]

....oh...the reason why it's discouraged in humans is purely because it looks disgusting to watch someone do this.....whereas primates have yet to develop our flare for social graces !!

[SquarishTriangle]

If the point of nasal discharge is to clear foreign material, bacteria etc. out of the respiratory tract and hence the body, it would probably defeat the purpose to then ingest that material back into the body. From a nutritional point of view, there wouldn't be a lot to gain from eating a tiny piece of mucous that your own body produced in the first place. We're not exactly a starving species (to a certain extent), but if we were you might be better off going for coprophagy over nasal secretion consumption (but please don't inform me if you do!). From an immunological point of view, I'm not sure if exposing pathogens from the respiratory tract to the gut would have a huge effect on the immune system. Possibly could help develop local immunity in the gut, but then it could possibly make you sick under the right conditions. But probably sniffing and swallowing (haven't we all), or coughing and swallowing would have a similar effect. (Notice the extensive use of 'probably', 'possibly' and 'might'...that roughly translates to "I don't know and I'm making things up.")

I think though, there is an indirect advantage in helping prevent infection... Having seen your behaviour, people would slowly and steadily back away from you, and possibly inform all their friends to do likewise, leaving you in complete isolation and some distance from anyone you could otherwise acquire some nasty infectious agent from.

[Make it Lady]

I was lead to believe that eating bodily waste products was done to hide your trail from possible preditors. This is why cats will eat their own fur too. Me, I love a boggie sandwich.

[blakestyger]

Q. What's the difference between a bogie and a brussel sprout?

A. You'll never get kids to eat sprouts.

[Karen W.]

LOL thats cute!

[SquarishTriangle]

Q. What's the difference between a bogie and a brussel sprout?

A. It's harder to flick a brussel sprout.

(...terrible! lol)

[Karen W.]

LOL.. No its funny! LOL...

[Jerryade]

i once saw this question on fact or fiction on this site and it said that there are  certain benefit which you get from picking your nose and eatind what you've picked out, i don't think ican do that.

[Make it Lady]

Try it Jerry, it is surprisingly tasty. They are much nicer than sprouts, For some bizarre reason I have an image of a sprout stuck up someones nose!!!



 

[neilep]

Try it Jerry, it is surprisingly tasty. They are much nicer than sprouts, For some bizarre reason I have an image of a sprout stuck up someones nose!!!



 

I have to agree with Shaz....

It's yummy and chewy !
Not coldy or Fluey
Don't be a fogey
Eat your own bogey !


LOL...quality poemage yet again !! []

[Make it Lady]

Aren't they called boogas in the USA? It sounds rude to me.

[blakestyger]

Whatever the nutritional advantages are this practice has its dangers - when I was at school, we had a boy who picked his nose so much that he pulled the lining out of his cap.

[SquarishTriangle]

I was hoping for a picture of a nasal bot in humans but not having found one, I thought this was equally amusing.

http://www.curezone.com/ig/i.asp?i=14048

[Make it Lady]

Bot flies should really make their home in your bot, or is it just me?

Whatever the nutritional advantages are this practice has its dangers - when I was at school, we had a boy who picked his nose so much that he pulled the lining out of his cap.

I heard about a man, sat in his car, picking his nose at the traffic lights when someone ran into the back of him. He had to go to hospital to have his finger surgically removed from his nasal cavity. Yuck and how embarrasssing.

[blakestyger]

LOL, that'll larn 'im.

[christinakesten94]

yuck....................
there's nothin good in mucus
there is only bacteria and dirty thing in the air.they will just make our health more eretic!!!!

[JnA]

There is an Australian doctor, Professor Dr. Friedrich, a lung specialist, who says picking your nose and eating it is healthy for two reasons:
1) "With the finger you can get to places you just can't reach with a handkerchief, keeping your nose far cleaner."
2) "Eating the dry remains of what you pull out is a great way of strengthening the body's immune system. The nose is a filter in which a great deal of bacteria is collected, and when this mixture arrives in the intestines it works just like a medicine."


however we do swallow quite a lot of snot daily, albeit bypassing the tastebuds, so any nutritional or health benefit we get from a snot swallow, would be from that almost litre of gooey goodness and not from the (by comparison) small amount one can pick out of their nose.
Therefore snot eaters (and they are around) are doing it for the taste and texture, and not for the biological 'urge' to keep your immune system healthy.