Allotriophagy +

(an unusual desire to eat "unnatural" items for food)

The persistent eating of non-nutritive substances

Pica is an eating disorder typically defined as the persistent eating of nonnutritive substances for a period of at least one month at an age in which this behavior is developmentally inappropriate; for example, 18-24 months. The definition occasionally is broadened to include the mouthing of nonnutritive substances.

Individuals involved with pica have been reported to mouth and/or ingest a wide variety of nonfood substances, including, but not limited to, clay, dirt, sand, stones, pebbles, hair, feces, lead, laundry starch, vinyl gloves, plastic, pencil erasers, ice, fingernails, paper, paint chips, coal, chalk, wood, plaster, light bulbs, needles, string, cigarette butts, wire, and burnt matches.

Keywords and Related Synonyms:

• inappropriate eating: Eating of nonnutritive substances, eating nonfood items.
• acuphagia: Ingestion of sharp objects.
• amylophagia: Eating laundry starch.
• bibliophagia: Consumption of books by eating the pages.
• cautopyreiophagia: Eating burnt matches, ingesting burnt match heads.
• coniophagia: Consumption of dust.
• coprophagia: Eating excrement or feces.
• emetophagia: Ingesting vomit.
• geomelophagia: Abnormal ingestion of raw potatoes.
• geophagy: Eating clay, consuming soil, ingesting dirt.
• gooberphagia: A pathological consumption of peanuts.
• hematophagy: Ingestion of blood.
• hyalophagia: Consumption of glass; such as, glass from windows and bottles.
• lithophagia: Ingestion of stones.
• mucophagy: Consumption of mucus.
• pagophagia: Pathological consumption or excessive eating of ice.
• plumbophagia: Eating lead.
• self-cannibalism: A rare condition where body parts may be consumed.
• trichophagia: Eating hair or wool.
• urophagia: Drinking urine.
• xylophagia: Consumption of wood.
• GI tract complications.
• hyperkalemia: Defined as a higher than normal concentration of potassium (K+) ions in the circulating blood. Because hyperkalemia can cause lethal cardiac arrhythmia, it is one of the most serious electrolyte disturbances.
• toxoplasmosis: Toxoplasma gondii is a widely distributed protozoan that usually causes an asymptomatic infection in the healthy host.
• toxocariasis: Caused by Toxocara canis and, less frequently, Toxocara catis, which are intestinal nematodes (roundworms) in dogs and cats, respectively. In humans, toxocariasis is considered an aberrant infection because humans are incidental hosts, and the parasites cannot completely mature in the human body. Instead, the invasive larvae migrate for months through different organs until they are overcome by the human inflammatory reaction and die. The larvae can survive in tissues for at least nine years and, possibly, for the life of the host.
• mechanical bowel problems: Small-bowel obstructions in pediatric patients are uncommon but should be suspected in any child with persistent vomiting and abdominal pain because delayed diagnosis and treatment can have devastating consequences. Infants and young children with intestinal obstruction present with pain, irritability, vomiting, and abdominal distension. Small-bowel obstructions progress to decreased or even no bowel movements. Undiagnosed or improperly managed, obstructions can lead to vascular compromise, causing bowel ischemia, necrosis, perforation, and death.
• constipation: For surgical purposes, the most useful definition of constipation is a change in the bowel habit or defecatory behavior that results in acute or chronic symptoms or diseases that would be resolved with relief of the constipation.
• intestinal ulcerations.
• intestinal perforations: Upper bowel perforation can be described as either free or contained. Free perforation occurs when bowel contents spill freely into the abdominal cavity, causing diffuse peritonitis (eg, duodenal or gastric perforation). Contained perforation occurs when a full-thickness hole is created by an ulcer, but free spillage is prevented because contiguous organs wall off the area (eg, duodenal ulcer penetrating into the pancreas).
• intestinal obstructions.
• mental retardation.
• lead toxicity: Its toxic effects on humans are well documented in history.
• lead encephalopathy: Consequences ranging from cognitive impairment in children to peripheral neuropathy in adults. While occupational exposure among workers at smelters or battery recycling plants remains an occasional problem, the greatest public health problem at the present time is exposure of young children to decaying fragments of leaded paint.
• soil-borne parasitic infections.
• trichuriasis: The worm derives its name from its characteristic whiplike shape; the adult (male - 30-45 mm, female - 35-50 mm) buries its thin, threadlike anterior half into the intestinal mucosa and feeds on tissue secretions, not blood. This relative tissue invasion causes occasional eosinophilia. The cecum and colon are the most commonly infected sites.
• bezoar formation: A mixture of food fibers that may get stuck in a stomach that does not empty well, similar to a hairball in a cat.
• zinc deficiency syndromes.
• iron deficiency syndromes.

More details about pica are available.

The word unit of phago-, -phagy words.

It's Pica Again.