Hi Everyone,
Sorry for the very poor attempt at regular blogging. Work was busy, then my computer broke, then our internet was down for almost a day (heaven help us!!!). I will try better in the future! However a thing that piqued my interest (and that of those in my office) was the result of a visiting researcher at work.
The posts a bit long but once I wrote it I didn’t want to give up. I’ll try to give brief posts in the future!!
Anyhow, the visiting researcher told us to watch a video. I'm fairly sure it’s not real. But it made me think about the topic it is mocking/highlighting. The videos quite creepy but comical really... It made me angry though if it was real and people believed this guy!!!
Check it out:
Watch The Placenta Salesman in Comedy View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com
The Human Placenta
The placenta is the organ which develops following conception to exchange blood and nutrients for a foetus. In my line of work (as a research assistant in a lab concerned with the foetal origins of adult heath) we end up discussing the placenta a lot. It a fascinating and complex piece of physiology, which is essentially a matrix of maternal and foetal vessels within a supporting structure cell layers. The cell layers separate the maternal and foetal circulations and allow diffusion of nutrients and oxygen from the mother to the foetus.
The posts a bit long but once I wrote it I didn’t want to give up. I’ll try to give brief posts in the future!!
Anyhow, the visiting researcher told us to watch a video. I'm fairly sure it’s not real. But it made me think about the topic it is mocking/highlighting. The videos quite creepy but comical really... It made me angry though if it was real and people believed this guy!!!
Check it out:
Watch The Placenta Salesman in Comedy View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com
The Human Placenta
The placenta is the organ which develops following conception to exchange blood and nutrients for a foetus. In my line of work (as a research assistant in a lab concerned with the foetal origins of adult heath) we end up discussing the placenta a lot. It a fascinating and complex piece of physiology, which is essentially a matrix of maternal and foetal vessels within a supporting structure cell layers. The cell layers separate the maternal and foetal circulations and allow diffusion of nutrients and oxygen from the mother to the foetus.
These picture show how the placenta would attach to the fetus and, shows a close up of the placenta tissue structure. (photos taken from Cornell University's http://www.biog1105-1106.org/
Here is a real Placenta shown from both the side that attaches to the uterus wall (the red side) and the side that has the umbilical cord which attaches to the baby. Placentophagia
The placenta is integral to many cultural birth practices, including ceremonial burial or, the topic i'm interested in today, consumption. This practice of eating the placenta is called Placentophagia. Many mammals eat the placenta following birth, however it is not an instinctive practice for humans. It has become common practice in some cultures. From a brief search online it seems that it is quite common in Asian culture, but rare in Western culture, although growing in popularity in some circles. The placenta is used in traditional Chinese medicine and often eaten by mothers raw or used cooked, dried and then powdered in various traditional remedies.
I have read a lot of online ‘articles’ relating to the ‘benefits of placentophagy’. While they have some good conceptual ideas and claim that studies show benefits, such as relief of post partum depression and increased energy, they provide no actual evidence of this. For an example, check out http://www.purebirth-australia.com/lotusbirth/placentophagia.html.
So I did my own research into whether or not it would be beneficial.
Placentophagia in Animals
I couldn't find much on the whether the practice in animals is health related. In my personal opinion I think the practice of plancentophagy in animals is purely realted to blood loss and depletion of energy (as the vascular placenta will replace much protein and iron). For humans, we are, in most cases, attended by others and have access to food and drink quite easily following birth. We will not suffer health deterioration from not being able to hunt or gather our food as is the case with mammals in the wild. We are not at risk of predation when weak following birth- in fact we usually go out of our way to make sure the birth is in a place of comfort, be it home, hospital water etc. Therefore the risk of death of the mother or the young due to an inability to get food leading to malnourishment is negligible (especially with modern medicine helping out following severe blood loss or complications). I have found only a few articles on the possible benefits in rats/rabbits consuming placentas (raw of course), and all related to the analgesic (pain relief) effects to be gained from the hormones that bind to specific pain receptors. This would an advantage if you had to be on the move or caring for young quickly.
But that doesn’t explain it for humans...
Placentophagia in Humans
While I wouldn’t do it myself, I am in no way opposed to the practice of people consuming THEIR OWN (or perhaps a friends as part of a ceremony) placenta. The most common advice is to cook, dry and then powder it and insert it into capsules. I think this would be relatively safe practice if done properly (professionals come and do it for mothers in many cases). In my opinion though, regardless of testimonies praising the medicinal properties of the placenta, I think the placebo effect is acting more strongly than anything else.
To be perfectly honest- there is no scientific literature** (based on a search of Medline, Embase, and Ovid journals) relating to the physiology (or the nutrition vs toxicity) of consuming the human placenta. I found a few articles relating to the practice in humans, written by shocked old men in the early seventies (after reading an account of a homebirth with the placenta eaten afterwards in a Rolling Stone magazine- Hilarious!). They then described it as a ‘tribal practice’ but give no details or benefits etc- simply discuss its occurrence.
However the **’s above are important- the lack of evidence is because it is primarily practived by people in Asia and as a part of traditional Eastern medicines, as far as I can tell, there won’t be many people interested in it here- and thus less articles. As I can’t read any Asian languages I am unable to search Asian journals. However I think that if they discovered a world breakthrough in post partum depression (a touted effect of eating placenta) they would announce it in as many journals across the globe as they can- which is what happens with most important science articles. So my opinion still stands, but with this lengthy disclaimer.
Back to the placebo effect: The only benefit of eating one’s own placenta that I was tempted to believe without any evidence to the contrary was stated benefit to post partum hormonal balance. However I do wonder if consuming more ‘We’re pregnant’ hormones interrupt the ‘Ooh we just gave birth and need to prepare our body to look after the baby externally’ hormones.... PLUS Most people like to cook it- which is good- gets rid of any germs depending on how long its kept after birth (that’s right they freeze them and defrost ‘em later!) which means that any hormones, as far as I understand it are denatured. Thus no hormones would have any effect!!!!
Hence my conclusion that its placebo effect for that particular benefit. Which is fine- a placebo is as helpful as any other treatment.
The only real article I found was in German (but recent and from a very respectable institution). The author, M. Menges wrote:
While I wouldn’t do it myself, I am in no way opposed to the practice of people consuming THEIR OWN (or perhaps a friends as part of a ceremony) placenta. The most common advice is to cook, dry and then powder it and insert it into capsules. I think this would be relatively safe practice if done properly (professionals come and do it for mothers in many cases). In my opinion though, regardless of testimonies praising the medicinal properties of the placenta, I think the placebo effect is acting more strongly than anything else.
To be perfectly honest- there is no scientific literature** (based on a search of Medline, Embase, and Ovid journals) relating to the physiology (or the nutrition vs toxicity) of consuming the human placenta. I found a few articles relating to the practice in humans, written by shocked old men in the early seventies (after reading an account of a homebirth with the placenta eaten afterwards in a Rolling Stone magazine- Hilarious!). They then described it as a ‘tribal practice’ but give no details or benefits etc- simply discuss its occurrence.
However the **’s above are important- the lack of evidence is because it is primarily practived by people in Asia and as a part of traditional Eastern medicines, as far as I can tell, there won’t be many people interested in it here- and thus less articles. As I can’t read any Asian languages I am unable to search Asian journals. However I think that if they discovered a world breakthrough in post partum depression (a touted effect of eating placenta) they would announce it in as many journals across the globe as they can- which is what happens with most important science articles. So my opinion still stands, but with this lengthy disclaimer.
Back to the placebo effect: The only benefit of eating one’s own placenta that I was tempted to believe without any evidence to the contrary was stated benefit to post partum hormonal balance. However I do wonder if consuming more ‘We’re pregnant’ hormones interrupt the ‘Ooh we just gave birth and need to prepare our body to look after the baby externally’ hormones.... PLUS Most people like to cook it- which is good- gets rid of any germs depending on how long its kept after birth (that’s right they freeze them and defrost ‘em later!) which means that any hormones, as far as I understand it are denatured. Thus no hormones would have any effect!!!!
Hence my conclusion that its placebo effect for that particular benefit. Which is fine- a placebo is as helpful as any other treatment.
The only real article I found was in German (but recent and from a very respectable institution). The author, M. Menges wrote:
“Over the last 30 years it could be observed that a very small minority of modern humans consumes the human placenta that belongs to the afterbirth. ... However, humans of traditional human cultures consume the afterbirth only in rare cases. In detail, the present essay discusses the hypothesis that human placentophagia has a phylogenetic basis and the hypothesis that human placentophagia is physiologically reasonable. It is concluded that the behavior of the human placentophagia neither possesses a phylogenetic basis nor can be regarded as physiologically reasonable.” Anthropol Anz. 2007 Mar;65(1):97-108.
That’s good enough for me.
Placenta Products:
I don’t think you can put a product such as placenta on your face and expect miracles. I don’t think many cosmetics work in any sort of restorative way. Do a google search though and there a thousands of products with placenta in them. Mostly sheep or other animals I assume. Placenta collection for mass products would be a bit more than creepy.
The Juices and Tablets- A) Gross- a juice- are they kidding!!! B) aforementioned denaturing of any actual hormones or proteins would occur so it would be doing very little in my opinion.
The cosmetics: I think its to do with hormones, or maybe stem cells?? Well would you rub meat paste, with preservatives in it, on your face and expect results? I think they think stem cells be able to replace or restore damaged skin. I don’t think there are many stem cells floating around in the placenta though. You’d be better off using bone marrow products- they are full of stem cells... except that you need the cells to A) be yours or your body will kill them, B) the same species to differentiate (grow/develop) into the needed cells- if somehow they managed to overcome the ‘not from your body’ problem... oh and C) someway to get your skin or hair or whatever to absorb it...
Not likely. I’ll stick to good old fashioned chemicals which give me the illusion of better skin!
I don’t think you can put a product such as placenta on your face and expect miracles. I don’t think many cosmetics work in any sort of restorative way. Do a google search though and there a thousands of products with placenta in them. Mostly sheep or other animals I assume. Placenta collection for mass products would be a bit more than creepy.
The Juices and Tablets- A) Gross- a juice- are they kidding!!! B) aforementioned denaturing of any actual hormones or proteins would occur so it would be doing very little in my opinion.
The cosmetics: I think its to do with hormones, or maybe stem cells?? Well would you rub meat paste, with preservatives in it, on your face and expect results? I think they think stem cells be able to replace or restore damaged skin. I don’t think there are many stem cells floating around in the placenta though. You’d be better off using bone marrow products- they are full of stem cells... except that you need the cells to A) be yours or your body will kill them, B) the same species to differentiate (grow/develop) into the needed cells- if somehow they managed to overcome the ‘not from your body’ problem... oh and C) someway to get your skin or hair or whatever to absorb it...
Not likely. I’ll stick to good old fashioned chemicals which give me the illusion of better skin!
Nerds are not just in, they are also super sexy. I agree it would be difficult for any 'stem cells' to be benificial to your complexion as they would struggle to penetrate. Also surely they would only help if they were still alive which would be a super short time period after leaving the uterus.
ReplyDeleteLove your work pretty girl
Love Jess