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A small human trial (27 participants) has found no benefits to consuming (dried) placental pills. The control group took pills containing beef or vegetarian mock beef:
In two new studies, researchers conclude that new moms who consume their placentas experience no significant changes in their moods, energy levels, hormone levels, or in bonding with their new infant, when compared with moms ingesting a placebo. "It really does show that most of what's going on, if not all, is a placebo effect," says Mark Kristal, a behavioral neuroscientist at the State University of New York in Buffalo who has studied the practice—known as placentophagy—in other animals for more than 40 years.
Humans aren't the only species that eat their placentas. In fact, nearly all mammals do. In rats, placentophagy spurs moms to start taking care of their pups and relieves birthing pain; both amniotic fluid and placentas contain a factor that acts as a morphine-related analgesic. But whether placentophagy confers such benefits in humans has been unclear. What is clear is that the practice is gaining in popularity. Before the 1970s, it was used occasionally in traditional Chinese medicine to treat a host of ailments in men and women. Now, there are cookbooks that offer guidelines for the storage and preparation of placenta-based smoothies and meals. Most contemporary consumers first steam and dehydrate the placenta before pulverizing it and fashioning it into a vitaminlike pill.
Maybe they need to eat it when it is fresh and raw instead of dried and powdered.
Effects of placentophagy on maternal salivary hormones: A pilot trial, part 1 (DOI: 10.1016/j.wombi.2017.09.023) (DX)
Placentophagy's effects on mood, bonding, and fatigue: A pilot trial, part 2 (DOI: 10.1016/j.wombi.2017.11.004) (DX)
Related: The Gruesome History of Eating Corpses as Medicine
Prematurely Born Lambs Kept Alive With Artificial External Placenta - Human Babies Could be Next
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 05 2017, @01:26AM (8 children)
Lots of things may be good for you in bulk (eggs, mushrooms, bran, turkey, carrots...) but having them as occasional tiny pills isn't going to make a difference. You need to chow down.
Take this recipe for example:
https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cookbook:Placenta_with_Broccoli [wikibooks.org]
It's not magic. It's not even really different from the same recipe but substituting gizzards, tripe, or sea cucumber. It's food. It's good for you, but you'll need to eat it in quantity. It's not a drug.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday December 05 2017, @01:36AM (1 child)
How do you even know its good for you? How is it different that fried thigh or broiled buttocks?
You've already cooked out all the supposed benefits. All you are left with is the fad.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 05 2017, @04:58AM
The whole point of this study is it's good for the researchers who have to publish or perish... Then another batch of researchers can do another study with raw versions, then cooked (but not powdered) placenta. Can stretch this line of "research" for decades. From what I see Modern Science is not about doing excellent and fairly conclusive research but getting $$$$, I don't blame the researchers - they have to do it to get $$$$.
FWIW I doubt eating placenta is that beneficial (probably eating cooked chicken/lamb liver would be better). But this study is like studying the health benefits of eating broccoli by having people take it dried and powdered in pills.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bob_super on Tuesday December 05 2017, @01:38AM (4 children)
I remember watching a video at school, where the mommy big cat ate her placenta after delivery, with the commentator saying something like "full of blood and very nutritious, it will help her produce good milk for her babies until she's ready to hunt again".
Either biology has changed in 30 years, or science found that comment was wrong ... or the people taking it as small pills really didn't get the "don't waste resources when weak" point.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Immerman on Tuesday December 05 2017, @02:02AM (3 children)
Indeed. It also sounds like in other mammals the benefits are associated with chowing down, raw, shortly after giving birth. When stress levels are at their highest and the mother likely too exhausted to hunt/scavenge effectively. No reason whatsoever to assume that whatever chemical cocktail might be within them to help with that scenario would be particularly useful days or even hours later. Much less after being dried, fried, or subjected to any of the other chemical-destroying processes humans like to do to their food, or consumed in small quantities over an extended period.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bob_super on Tuesday December 05 2017, @02:06AM (2 children)
Extra bonus: Having fresh bloody meat attracts predators, so removing the evidence before it stinks is easier than hiding the pups.
Which egg-wearing Hollywood starlet sold people on the idea that drying/pilling would have benefits? I guess I'm jealous I'm not as shameless as those people.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday December 05 2017, @02:22AM
I hear you. Honesty and integrity are among my least-entertaining vices...
(Score: 3, Informative) by mrpg on Tuesday December 05 2017, @02:32AM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_placentophagy [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by driverless on Tuesday December 05 2017, @08:26AM
This cooking guide [youtube.com] provides a much better insight into cooking placenta.