Pagophagia (Ice cube eating): A little recognized sign of anemia and possibly cancer!
Pagophagia (a form of pica, a craving to eat unnatural articles such as rocks, paint or dirt) is a little known term that is not known by many physicians. It describes the act of ingesting excessive amounts of ice cubes. An initial study of pagophagia appeared in the JAMA " Pica, pagophagia, and anemia " by L. G. Keith; C. D. Rosenberg; E. Brown JAMA. 1969;208:535. When I first saw this article I chuckled because I had seen a case of pagophagia two years before in medical school in Buffalo , New York with my mentor in hematology Dr. Ben Fisher and we were unaware of the phenomenon at the time. We had seen a young girl who was severely iron deficient from blood loss anemia and she so eloquently described to us how she so adored to eat ice cubes and how she would eat two to three trays of ice cubes daily. She said that the best part of an ice cube was the opaque center where the small bubbles coalesced. We walked away chuckling and assumed that the girl was a bit nuts. Howeve...