Hello there this is Monica Reinagle the nutrition diva here with your quick and dirty

tips for eating well and feeling fabulous and this week I'm going to answer a

great listener question about chewing ice and what that might mean for your health.

Almost everyone knows someone who is addicted to chewing ice.

They crunch on ice cubes all day long, They get up in the middle of the night to chew ice. They might have favorite ice cube trays or go out of their way to get ice from specific places. They literally go crazy if they can't get ice. Maybe you're one of them.

Ice chewing is called pagophagia, and it's one specific type of a more general medical condition that's referred to as pica.

People with pica have a compulsive desire to eat things that have no nutritional value,

such as ice or cornstarch, or even things that aren't food at all like clay, dirt, chalk, or paint chips.

Compared with gnawing on pencil erasers or peeling the paint off the baseboards, chewing on a little ice doesn't seem all that bad, does it?

Nonetheless, it can signal a medical problem.

As with other forms of pica, the compulsion to chew ice is often a sign of severe iron deficiency.

That might be why so many women report developing an ice chewing habit during pregnancy,

because iron needs a very high during pregnancy and pregnant women often develop iron deficiency anemia.

Another group of people that are a particularly high risk of iron and other nutrient deficiencies

are people that have had gastric bypass surgery.

Because of the size of the stomach is so drastically reduced by this surgery,

patients can eat only a very small amount of food, which obviously limits the amount of nutrients

they can take in.

Plus their ability to digest that food and

absorb the nutrients is impaired.

And that, by the way, is just one reason why I believe that Gastrich Bypass should be used

only as a last resort and accompanied by much more intensive nutritional

...