Medicinal Uses of Soil Components, Geophagia and Podoconiosis

Soils have an impact on human health in many ways. The link between soils and human health has been recognized for thousands of years. Examples of how soils influence human health include the transfer of nutrients from soil to people through plant and animal sources as well as through direct ingestion. The principal source materials for soil components that are beneficial to human health or that are to be used as medicine can be grouped into soil minerals as a source of elements essential to the human body or used in healthcare products and mud, peat, and clay for fangotherapy for healing purposes, as well as soil microorganisms that produce drugs. Involuntarily or deliberately ingested components of soils can be beneficial to humans. However, minerals can also have an adverse effect on human health when they are inhaled over a very long period. Podoconiosis, a non-infectious disease, is associated with chronic barefoot exposure to red volcanic soil, with greater prevalence in high-altitude, impoverished areas of the tropics.