Pica and approach to that in Iranian Traditional Medicine

Background and Pica is disorder of eating.The affected person tends to eat inedible and non nutritive substances like clay,chalk,ice,stone,paint,etc that lasts for a period of atleast one month and is not acceptable culturally.This disorder may have different causes as Iron or Zinc difficiency,Mental disorders,etc.It is more prevalent in pregnant women,children and societies with low socioeconomical states.It results in different complications of poisoning with the eaten substances,intestinal obstruction,dental injuries,parasitic infections,… In the reference books of Iranian Traditional Medicine it has been named as corrupt appetite which is due to bad humour in the stomach which has to be discharged by different options of nutritional management,emetics,purgatives and medicines
Methods and Materials: In this process we studied different Iranian Traditional Medicine reference books as Canon of Medicine,Alhavi-Fi-Al-Tib, Complete Al-sanaha-Al-Tebiyah, Sharh-Al-Asbab va Al-Alamat, Akbari Medicine, Hidayat al-Mutaallimin Fi al-Tibb and Azam’s Elixir.Then we extracted the attitude and approach of the writers of the books towards the pica disorder.
Approximately all of the authors of these books have the same idea of it’s cause to be the bad humour accumulated in the stomach and variable treatments have been presented to cure the disease.The rich therapeutic potential of Iranian Traditional Medicine with the very least side effects can be best used in favour of the patients who suffer Pica disease.