The Cotton Ball Diet: Why it's Becoming a Dangerous Trend

The latest fad diet allegedly used by supermodels and many young women across the country may not only be bizarre but extremely dangerous.

According to ABC News, the diet, which involves dipping up to five cotton balls in juice and eating them in one setting, is meant to trick the body into thinking it's full.

"They dip it in the orange juice and then they eat the cotton balls to help them feel full, because the cotton's not doing anything. It's just dissolving. And it makes you think you're full, but you're not," Bria Murphy said, according to an interview with "Good Morning America." She was discussing behind-the-scenes fashion issues regarding the 13th season filming of "America's Next Top Model.

Yet if the cotton balls are just dissolving, where is the danger? (Though we have to admit, this is certainly bizarre.)

Dr. Ovidio Bermudez, the chief medical officer at the Eating Recovery Center in Denver, compares ingesting them to eating cloth, buttons or coins. He also stresses that many may contain dangerous chemicals, including bleached, polyester fibers that could obstruct the intestinal tract, also known as bezoar. This happens when a mass is trapped in the area, which could indeed prove to be life-threatening.

"The most common causes of bezoars are swallowing indigestible matter like hair or too much vegetable fire," Bermudez said, via ABC news. "Cotton balls could certainly create similar problems."

Unfortunately, as many note that the diet is steadily becoming quite popular, co-director of the eating disorders clinical and research program at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston believes that this could become a new eating disorder.

"I've had patients in my practice eat things like paper and clay for the same reason-they're trying to distract themselves from hunger and prevent wait gain," she said, via ABC News.