4 Totally Gross Things That Are Secretly Good For You

A study looked at two groups of people on controlled diets, one with crickets and one without. After analyzing blood and stool samples, the group on the Jiminy diet was found to have more of an enzyme associated with good gut health, more useful bacterium, and less of an inflammatory protein associated with bowel disease, cancer, and other nasty ailments. The sample size was quite small, but the limited findings were in line with other studies on cricket consumption. We've learned that not only are crickets a great source of protein, vitamins, healthy fats, and fiber, but also that we're really good at digesting them. Your brain might not want a cricket snack, but your body does.

Once again, this is grosser in theory than in execution, as crickets can be consumed in all sorts of way that don't remind you of their creepy-crawliness. This study used cricket powder, which is exactly what it sounds like, which was mixed into a shake, and that was enough to see benefits as compared to the people whose breakfast shakes were cricket-free. So if you're not into the idea of eating scoops of raw bugs, keep an eye out for a new Exoskeleton Queen location popping up in your neighborhood and give their chitin cherry shake a try.

Kids who suck their thumbs and bite their nails grow up to have stronger immune systems and suffer less-severe allergic reactions, albeit at the cost of being more prone to having the terrible state of their nails called out as adults. That's because it's important for kids to be exposed to bacteria, viruses, and allergens. That way, their bodies learn how to fight various ailments. And there's no greater source of gross crap than their own sticky hands. All sorts of foreign substances end up on kids' hands, with dirt and other crud getting stuck under nails before winding up in mouths.

Children with both habits had even better reactions to pet and mite allergies as adults than children with only one habit. So if you see your kid with their thumb in their mouth, we guess you should encourage them to nibble on that nail while they're at it. But by the time you become an adult, there are far better ways to boost your immune system, so no trying to convince your date that your nails are only a ragged mess because you care about your body. All the Peanuts kids need to apologize to Linus for giving him so much grief, though.

Most notably, mucus provides a barrier against bacteria that cause cavities, meaning that eating it is good for your teeth. It's to the point where scientists who are probably shunned by their peers are looking into creating artificial-mucus-based toothpaste and gum. Yes, we may one day live in a world where someone offers you mucus gum and you can't just immediately have them arrested.

Frenkel, Ribbeck/Applied Environmental MicrobiologyThe terms here are a little hard to follow, but we think that may be because no one wants to be the scientist who uses the word "booger."

More speculatively, mucus consumption is believed to help fight respiratory infections and stomach ulcers. "Eating the dry remains of what you pull out is a great way of strengthening the body's immune system," a disgusting expert said. "Medically it makes great sense and is a perfectly natural thing to do," he continued, as reporters slowly backed away and missed the final few words. The unfortunate logic is that the nose acts like a big bacteria trap, and moving all of that bacteria into your stomach is like a little shot of immune-boosting medicine, only revolting.

This new study that probably made at least one researcher regret their career choices contradicts previous medical advice, which said that picking your nose was both bad for you and also, like, a really nasty and shameful thing to do. But now science declares it to be an excellent natural impulse, and we can't wait for the headlines to go back and forth on this issue for many foul years to come.

Mark is on Twitter and wrote a book.

For more, check out What Your Doctor Wants To Tell You, But Can't (From A Medical Physician):

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