Wall Of Weird: Indian Sadhu Without Food & Drink

An 84 year-old Indian Sadhu or a holy man "Prahlad Jani" has claimed that he has been living for 70 years without food or water.

Jani states that he is living as a monk since he was seven and was blessed by a Goddess when he was 11, since that blessing he gained his sustenance from nectar that filters down through a hole in his palate, and has not passed urine or stools since then.

In 2003, Jani was kept under surveillance for 10 days in Ahmedabad’s Sterling Hospital. He was given no food and only a small amount of water to wash his mouth and the water was later measured to confirm that he did not swallow any of it. He survived the ordeal, but lost a bit of weight, which cast doubts that he could survived without food over a much longer period.

His story caught the attention of India’s Defence Research Development Organisation, which hopes further research could help soldiers survive longer without food, or disaster victims to hang on until help arrives. Jani has again entered the hospital since April 22, 2010, where he is closely monitored for 15-20 days.

Dr. Michael Van Rooyen, director of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, dismissed the observation results as "impossible", observing that the bodies of profoundly malnourished people quickly consume their own body's resources, resulting in liver failure, tachycardia and heart strain. A spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association remarked that the human body could survive on water alone, although not healthily, and that a person could not expect to meet their body's vitamin and mineral requirements without ingesting food. Nutrition researcher Peter Clifton also disagrees with study results. He accused the research team of "cheating" by allowing Jani to gargle and bathe, stating that a human of average weight would die after "15 to 20 days" without water. People who avoid food and water to emulate mystical figures often die.Sanal Edamaruku characterized the experiment as a farce for allowing Jani to move out of the CCTV cameras' field of view, claiming that video footage showed Jani was allowed to receive devotees and to leave the sealed test room for sunbathing. Edamaruku also said that the gargling and bathing activities were insufficiently monitored, and that he was denied access to the site where the tests were conducted in both 2003 and 2010. He accuses Jani of having "influential protectors" responsible for denying Edamaruku permission to inspect the project during its operation, despite having been invited to join the test during a live television broadcast. The Indian Rationalist Association stated that individuals making similar claims in the past have been exposed as frauds. (This paragraph from Wikipedia)