'Starving yogi' astounds Indian scientists

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http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/20100510/to ... 1ab4f.html



An 83-year-old Indian holy man who says he has spent seven decades without food or water has astounded a team of military doctors who studied him during a two-week observation period.


Prahlad Jani spent a fortnight in a hospital in the western India state of Gujarat under constant surveillance from a team of 30 medics equipped with cameras and closed circuit television.

During the period, he neither ate nor drank and did not go to the toilet.

"We still do not know how he survives," neurologist Sudhir Shah told reporters after the end of the experiment. "It is still a mystery what kind of phenomenon this is."

The long-haired and bearded yogi was sealed in a hospital in the city of Ahmedabad in a study initiated by India's Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), the state defence and military research institute.

The DRDO hopes that the findings, set to be released in greater detail in several months, could help soldiers survive without food and drink, assist astronauts or even save the lives of people trapped in natural disasters.

"(Jani's) only contact with any kind of fluid was during gargling and bathing periodically during the period," G. Ilavazahagan, director of India's Defence Institute of Physiology and Allied Sciences (DIPAS), said in a statement.

Jani has since returned to his village near Ambaji in northern Gujarat where he will resume his routine of yoga and meditation. He says that he was blessed by a goddess at a young age, which gave him special powers.

During the 15-day observation, which ended on Thursday, the doctors took scans of Jani's organs, brain, and blood vessels, as well as doing tests on his heart, lungs and memory capacity.

"The reports were all in the pre-determined safety range through the observation period," Shah told reporters at a press conference last week.

Other results from DNA analysis, molecular biological studies and tests on his hormones, enzymes, energy metabolism and genes will take months to come through.

"If Jani does not derive energy from food and water, he must be doing that from energy sources around him, sunlight being one," said Shah.

"As medical practitioners we cannot shut our eyes to possibilities, to a source of energy other than calories."

This isn't real.

He most certainly did eat and drink during his life.

As for the 15 days in the hospital, it is pretty easy to go 2 weeks without eating. But he did drink. They said he rinsed his mouth regularly, yes? That's when he drank water.

There are no contradictions in life. If you run into one, check your premisses. At least one of them will be wrong.

I'm surprised they didn't lock up in a room for that length of time without food and water...

Exactly! He's scamming them and they are deluding themselves because they want to believe this. They want to believe it but they know it isn't really true so they let him drink (er, "gargle") and made sure the experiment didn't last long enough to actually starve him to death because they didn't want to kill him. Since they knew he would die if they did this for real.

I guess even scientists want to believe in magic sometimes, but they know it isn't true so they had to rig the experiment to avoid accidentally killing him.

yes, yes, it's simply not possible.

evidence, not withstanding . . .

~huge sigh~

what u think may be impossible.
maybe it is for u or me, but who
knows ? -- there could be that 1
person who can accomplish it.

(also, this news about Jani is old
sorry. i herd it like around 2003.
must be a slow news day to go
that far back in the archive and
dredge it up again. like its new.)

P.S.:

what do you think of this "fraud":

click

btw: this girl is 16 now. crzy eh ?

There is no evidence. He was given water. They say he just gargled with it. So? He drinks some, he spits the rest out. Therefore he doesn't dehydrate. They say he didn't eliminate at all. But he did take baths. He could have urinated in the bathwater to preserve the illusion that he wasn't urinating. They say he didn't eat food. And he didn't. For 2 weeks. That is not long enough for somebody to starve to death. Had they actually run the experiment past the amount of time it takes to starve to death, they would have had evidence. Or a dead body. And they didn't want a dead body so they deliberately rigged the experiment so that he wouldn't starve to death.

There is no evidence that this man needs neither food nor water. What there is is a rigged experiment that allows him to drink and urinate covertly and that ends before he can starve to death. This is evidence only of the human capacity for self deception.






I think that's a girl with a severe developmental delay. She is not actually a baby. Her body isn't producing enough growth hormone for her to develop and grow properly. It isn't a fraud or a miracle. It's just sad.

No way this man is legit. "Gargling" and "bathing?" No way he could have hydrated.

yup. it is crazy that he needs to gargle and bathe but doesn't need food or water. i mean i can go 2 weeks without bathing but not without drinking water.

Calorie restriction topic

Not a starving artist. Not worthy of Kafka. Some people can live on little but can still get their viamins in other ways. The less you eat, the less you eliminate. If he sat on a small bedpan no one would notice.

@sartresue

awwww ! why'd u have to go and say taht ! ! thats disgusting !

ur a horrible person. i hope u realize that. u ruined th1s thred

I've read about stuff like this in the "Ripley's Believe It or Not" books. It's astounding, and it seems unreal. I wonder if this kind of thing is real, or if there really is something else going on?

EDIT: It actually may have been the same guy that I read about, but I'm not sure.

Not physically possible. Since this guy is not eating, then he doesn't need oxygen to metabolize the food he's not eating. Put him in a room full of 100% nitrogen and see how long he lasts. Not long.

Bobby Sands, the Irish radical went on hunger strike. It took him 66 days to die of hunger. Was this experimental subject observed that long? I doubt it.

ruveyn

topic

That's obviously a load of bull...