Journal
PHYSIOLOGY & BEHAVIOR
Volume 97, Issue 1, Pages 87-90Publisher
PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.physbeh.2009.02.009
Keywords
Nausea; Emesis; Pica; Clay; Cisplatin; Vagus
Categories
Funding
- NIH [DC000014, DK065971, DK46791]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Clay consumption can occur during illness but there has been little work to understand why. To investigate whether consuming clay confers an advantage to the sick animal, we compared the recovery from illness of adult male rats with or without access to kaolin. Illness was induced by injection of 6 mg/kg, ip, cisplatin, a toxic chemotherapy agent, and recovery was assessed by changes in daily food intake, water intake, and body weight. Relative to saline-injected controls, cisplatin-injected rats reduced food and water intake and lost weight. However, those with access to kaolin ate more food and lost less body weight than did those without access to kaolin. Thus, clay consumption appeared beneficial in that it either protected the rats from illness or enhanced recovery and might prove useful as an adjunct therapy for other animals. including humans, experiencing visceral malaise. (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available