Humanity’s obsession with dieting has produced some genuinely inventive approaches to weight loss over the centuries. Some are merely eccentric. Others are actively dangerous. A few have actually killed people. Here is a look at the most extreme diets real humans have actually attempted, along with very clear warnings about why most of them are terrible ideas.
Breatharianism: The Diet Where You Literally Eat Nothing
Breatharianism is the belief that humans can survive on sunlight and air alone, with no need for food or water. Its most prominent advocate, an Australian woman named Ellen Greve who goes by Jasmuheen, claims to have lived for years without eating. When Australia’s 60 Minutes put her claims to the test in a supervised environment, she showed clear signs of dehydration, elevated blood pressure, and speech difficulties within 48 hours. The test was stopped on the fourth day when a doctor determined she was at risk of kidney failure.
Multiple deaths have been directly linked to breatharianism. A 49-year-old Australian woman named Lani Morris died in 1999 after attempting a 21-day breatharian retreat. Despite the documented fatalities, the practice retains a small but stubborn following. Medical professionals universally classify it as dangerous pseudoscience. Humans need food and water. Full stop.
Is the Carnivore Diet Actually Healthy or Just Contrarian?
The all-meat carnivore diet gained mainstream attention partly through orthopedic surgeon Shawn Baker and the Peterson family. Jordan Peterson and his daughter Mikhaila both publicly credited an all-beef diet with resolving various chronic health issues, generating massive media coverage and debate. The diet eliminates all plant foods entirely.
Gastroenterologists and nutritionists remain deeply divided. Some patients report genuine improvements in autoimmune symptoms, while long-term studies on the diet’s effects on heart health and colon cancer risk are essentially nonexistent. The diet is not inherently deadly like some others on this list, but eliminating all fiber and plant-based nutrients for extended periods raises legitimate medical concerns that proponents tend to dismiss.
Raw Water: Silicon Valley’s $60 Answer to Perfectly Safe Tap Water
In 2017, a company called Live Water began selling unfiltered, untreated spring water for $60.99 per 2.5-gallon jug, primarily to health-conscious consumers in the San Francisco Bay Area. The founder claimed that treated water contained ‘mind-control drugs’ and that raw water contained beneficial probiotics destroyed by municipal water treatment.
Health experts immediately sounded alarms. Untreated water can contain E. coli, Giardia, cholera bacteria, and various parasites. Municipal water treatment exists specifically because untreated water killed enormous numbers of people throughout human history. The raw water trend perfectly captured a certain strain of wellness culture where ‘natural’ is automatically assumed to be superior, regardless of evidence.
Victorian Tapeworm Pills and Their Disturbing Modern Resurgence
During the Victorian era, sanitized tapeworm eggs were marketed as diet pills, with the premise that the parasite would consume a portion of whatever the host ate, resulting in weight loss. Advertisements from the period show these pills being marketed alongside other patent medicines, often with enthusiastic testimonials.
Disturbingly, tapeworm dieting has not fully disappeared. Modern cases have been documented in Mexico and the United States, where people intentionally ingest tapeworm cysts purchased online. The parasites can migrate to the brain, eyes, and liver, causing seizures, organ damage, and death. The Iowa Department of Public Health documented a case in 2013 where a woman purchased a tapeworm online specifically for weight loss. Her doctor was reportedly stunned.
The Cotton Ball Diet and Other Social Media Dangers
The cotton ball diet, which involves soaking cotton balls in juice or smoothies and swallowing them to create a feeling of fullness, gained traction on YouTube and later TikTok. The practice carries severe risks including intestinal obstruction, malnutrition, and chemical toxicity, since most commercial cotton balls are not actually cotton but bleached polyester fibers.
Celebrity trainer Tracy Anderson created the baby food diet for client Gwyneth Paltrow, which involves replacing two meals daily with approximately 14 jars of pureed baby food. While not dangerous in the same way as cotton balls or tapeworms, it is nutritionally inadequate for adults and represents the kind of extreme caloric restriction that typically leads to rebound weight gain.
The Sleeping Beauty Diet: Sedation as a Weight Loss Strategy
The Sleeping Beauty diet operates on the grim logic that you cannot eat while unconscious. Practitioners use sedatives to sleep for extended periods, sometimes days, to avoid meals. Elvis Presley was reportedly a practitioner, using medication to sleep through periods of extreme dieting.
This approach carries obvious risks including drug dependency, muscle atrophy, blood clots from prolonged immobility, and dangerous interactions between sedatives. No medical professional has ever endorsed the practice, and its resurgence on certain corners of the internet has alarmed eating disorder specialists who see it as a particularly insidious form of disordered eating disguised as a ‘hack.’
Have you ever tried a diet that turned out to be a terrible idea? Share your experience in the comments below!