Ben Radford has article on front page of Yahoo under News

[OC68]

I guess this accounts for a news article these days. The info is a bit dated.
Indian Mystic Claims Not to Eat for 70 Years - Yahoo! News
Radford quotes an old report as if it was recent.

Reports claim that Prahlad Jani "has now spent six days without food or water under strict observation and doctors say his body has not yet shown any adverse effects from hunger or dehydration."

The study has already ended and he went fifteen days without food or water.
You can watch a brief news story about the study here:
YouTube - Indian 'holy man' perplexes doctors
By the way, this is from a different article dated from April 28 (the study lasted until May 6).

Leading Australian nutritionist, Dr Joanna McMillan Price, said the study was a dangerous and pointless exercise.
"What’s the point? To show spiritual strength? You would struggle to go for more than a week without water and without food, your body starts to break down muscle, eventually attacking the heart muscles needed to provide energy to the brain until ultimately you have a heart attack and you die," she said.
Dr McMillan Price says Mr Jani's beliefs probably helped him overcome basic survival instincts but would not physically sustain him.
"Your spiritual beliefs can give mental strength but the idea that spirituality can replace food and water is ludicrous," she said.
"He would certainly be fighting strong physiological responses. Your body starts getting pretty strong hunger pangs after a few days because your brain is telling you that you need to eat or you’ll die."
Dr McMillan Price said she couldn't see Mr Jani lasting any more than a few extra days without water and she said his fasting gave the wrong message.

Here's a link to the above article:
http://www.news.com.au/weird-true-fr...-1225859946801

[paqart]

Originally Posted by OC68

I guess this accounts for a news article. Apparently it's a column he wrote for Live Science yesterday. Have to say, it's a bit dated.
Indian Mystic Claims Not to Eat for 70 Years - Yahoo! News
Radford seems to quote an old report as if it was recent.

The study has ended and he actually went fifteen days without food or water.
UPDATE: Holy Man's Two Weeks Without Food, Water - Incredible Health - FOXNews.com
You can watch a video about the study here:
YouTube - Indian 'holy man' perplexes doctors
By the way, this is from a different article dated from April 28 (the study lasted until May 6).

Here's a link to the above article:
Man claims he ate, drank nothing for 70 years | News.com.au

Seems to me it is Dr. McMillan Price who comes across badly here. I saw the Discovery Channel documentary that dealt with this guy (as an aside in a much larger article about Ram Bomjon), and this man doesn't appear in any distress at all. What Dr McMillan Price doesn't seem to have considered is that this man may actually be doing exactly what he says he's doing (and has done for 70 years.) It is impractical to follow a man with cameras for his entire life, but on the couple of occasions its been done, there were no problems.

There are people who have been inspired to do unwise things after hearing about people like this - the breatharians come to mind, but that is a different story. Failure to distinguish between these is an example of observational incompetence.

AP

[OC68]

70 years without eating? 'Starving yogi' says it's true - The Body Odd - msnbc.com

But that’s simply impossible, said Dr. Michael Van Rooyen an emergency physician at Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, an associate professor at the medical school, and the director of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative – which focuses on aid to displaced populations who lack food and water.
Van Rooyen says that depending on climate conditions like temperature and humidity, a human could survive five or six days without water, maybe a day or two longer in extraordinary circumstances.

Jani, dubbed "the starving yogi" by some, did have limited contact with water while gargling and periodically bathing, reported the news wire service AFP. While researchers said they measured what he spit out, Van Rooyen said he's clearly getting fluid somehow.
"You can hold a lot of water in those yogi beards. A sneaky yogi for certain," he said. "He MUST take in water. The human body cannot survive without it." The effects of food and water deprivation are profound, Van Rooyen explained.
The yogi, though, would already be dead from lack of hydration. If he really went without any liquids at all, his cardiovascular system would have collapsed. “You lose about a liter or two of water per day just by breathing,” Van Rooyen said. You don’t have to sweat, which the yogi claims he never does. That water loss results in thicker blood and a drop in blood pressure.

[OC68]

AFP: 'Starving yogi' astounds Indian scientists

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."(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. 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.

[OC68]

Medics baffled by man who doesn't eat

During his time in hospital from April 22, the so called 82-year-old "miracle man" was monitored 24 hours a day by doctors who confirmed he consumed no food or water during the 15-day period.
Medical tests conducted on Mr Jani found he was healthier than someone half his age.
"Clinical, biochemical, radiological and other relevant examinations were done on Prahlad Jani and all reports were within a safe range throughout the study. He is healthy, his mind is sharp," Indian military doctor [...] Illavashagn was quoted as saying by the Daily Mail newspaper.
"What is truly astonishing , and something we have no explanation for, is that he passed no stools or urine. To my knowledge, that is medically unprecedented."

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I vote that Dr. Shah is a fraud. He was also responsible for the 2003 investigation of this guy.

~~ Paul

[OC68]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

I vote that Dr. Shah is a fraud. He was also responsible for the 2003 investigation of this guy.

~~ Paul

under constant surveillance from a team of 30 medics equipped with cameras and closed circuit television

I wouldn't be shocked if you turned out to be right though.

[David Bailey]

Originally Posted by OC68

I wouldn't be shocked if you turned out to be right though.

Neither would I, but we can see here an excellent example of the problems science has in coming to grips with such phenomena.

An effort is made to test a claim. Presumably the conditions were kept as rigorous as possible, and when the claim is apparently confirmed, people just say, it must be a fraud!

Whether this is real or not, I hope everyone can see the totally circular reasoning involved!

David

[Open Mind]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

I vote that Dr. Shah is a fraud. He was also responsible for the 2003 investigation of this guy.

~~ Paul

Excellent. I will add another skeptic conspiracy theory to the long list. Oops I forgot skeptics call these hoaxes instead.

So what is the theory here, is Dr Shah using slight of hand to give the guy water? What does he hope to gain by commiting fraud in front of the world media?

To be serious for a moment ... perhaps a person can train the body to gradually survive on very little water ...5 days would be possible IMHO with gradual practise (please do not try this at home folks) ... however 15 days seems beyond the incredible ....

However by claiming 70 years means the skeptics have a worrying problem that must be debunked.

Possible solutions for those who believe science needs to be protected from irrational beliefs

Perhaps the best solution is for a skeptical journalist to claim the old man suffers from dimensia and was caught eating a pie unawares. Skeptics could enjoy the news with a beer!

Perhaps we could call in magician debunkers, they could find a little flask of water, dangling from the bed springs, that the 30 medical staff previously missed. Solved

Perhaps a better solution still is to wait till the 83 year old dies and plant cheese, mince, potatoes, cakes, starbucks coffee in his house.

Solved for most skeptics

[Co-optacus]

Originally Posted by Open Mind

So what is the theory here, is Dr Shah using slight of hand to give the guy water?

I liked the idea someone suggested of him keeping water in his beard. I'm assuming they meant using the beard as a sponge or something, rather than loading it with phials. If so I reckon that in itself is a worthy skill worth the knowing.

In just a few weeks I could by trudging along merrily supping beer from my beard to the complete ignorance of all onlookers! But why stop there I could claim that ethereal spirits availed me in my drunkeness, and that I could become inebriated without the imbibing of any booze whatsoever. Indeed my vision is grander still - I'm sure I could construct a whole drunken cult for people desirous to become intoxicated by "spirits from the spirits!"