Section

Ecology

Title

GEOPHAGY IN HUMANS AS A FOOD PHENOMENON OF THE INTERACTION WITH THE ABIOTIC FACTORS OF THE ENVIRONMENT: A REVIEW OF FOREIGN PUBLICATIONS

Сontributors

A. A. Sergievich, Doctoral candidate of School of Natural Sciences, Head of the Biomedical laboratory, Far Eastern Federal University, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.;

K. S. Golokhvast, Professor of the Department of Life safety in technosphere of School of Engineering, Director of REC nanotechnology

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of geophagy as one of the phenomena of food human behaviour in the case of the interaction of a living system with abiotic environmental factors. The authors note that there is a problem of terminology because this issue is poorly known in Russian scientific literature, so geophagy in humans is seen as a mental disorder in eating behavior. The analysis of the main studies of this phenomenon in foreign scientific literature allows us to identify the main causes of geophagious behavior, i.e. the lack of minerals (especially during pregnancy), absorption of enterotoxins and reflective form of eating behavior. The main area of distribution of the phenomenon under study is the pre-Equatorial areas where there is the consumption of different types of clay and certain types of land. Most modern studies focus on the geochemical composition of the consumed soils and a significant lack of research illuminating the physiological mechanisms of geophagious behavior.

Keywords

geophagy, food human behavior, physiological anthropology, human ecology.

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