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July 14, 2010 4:58 PM
Pica Correspondent
The mother of little "Ting Ting" swears her baby doesn't eat nails - in fact, she says they have no nails whatsoever at home - and at one stage was under investigation for abusing her child.
But doctors say Ting Ting may be suffering from pica, an eating disorder that elicits cravings for non-food items.
In regular cases, it's characterised by a toddlers' fascination with eating dirt or cigarette butts, but eating nails is "very strange" for even pica sufferers, according to Professor GaoYa from the Xi'an Jiaotong University.
Perhaps the biggest mystery is where Ting Ting got the nails.
In the past month, Ting Ting had pooed out 21 nails and a safety pin.
Pica is often linked to zinc deficiency, but blood tests showed all was well in thet department for Ting Ting, and she also ate and drank like a normal child.
A recent x-ray revealed she still had a steel pin and a nail in her stomach, which doctors said she needed to expel "as soons as possible without causing injury".
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