Radio Taiwan International
Date: 22 November, 2019
By: John Van Trieste
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Cotton: Not a diet food
The so-called “cotton ball diet” is the dangerous practice of eating cotton with the belief that it will help with weight loss. As a 16-year-old in Taiwan found out to hard way, eating cotton can have serious consequences.
This young woman slowly ate a cotton blanket over the course of a year until she began to vomit and feel pain in her stomach. Doctors found that she had given herself an intestinal obstruction.
She was lucky that she didn’t suffer worse: doctors say that cotton products aren’t usually made just from pure cotton. They also tend to include synthetic fibers and plastics, and doctors say there is a chance that if eaten, these materials can punch a hole in the intestines. [FULL STORY]