OLL LEWIS: Good for the Sole?

In recent months people in the UK have been doing something a bit odd. They have been feeding themselves to fish.

The reason for this is not out of some sort of random philanthropy towards our finned friends but as a sort of 'natural' pedicure. The idea is that you put your feet or hands in a tank full of Garra rufa or doctor fish and they eat the dead skin from your feet. Although the procedure might seem to venture into 'alternative health' therapy the process is apparently well regarded by some scientists as a treatment for psoriasis and eczema much in the same way that leaches are used in some medical procedures.

The first public spas offering this fishy exfoliation opened in Japan and Croatia in 2006, with the first American spas opening in 2008. The first UK spas opened in 2010 and in a relatively short short space of time many spas have opened, including two in the same shopping arcade in Cardiff over the Christmas period, with many more spas planned.

However, in America and Canada Garra rufa spas have been banned in several states due to sanitary concerns by cosmetologists. They took the opinion that the process of fish pedicures should be banned since the fish could not be sterilised by heat after use or disposed of after one use. Other cosmetologists argue that the process is perfectly sanitary and a sanitary process is quite adequate in a situation like this when full sterilisation is not possible. No British politicians have expressed a wish to ban Garra rufa spas in the UK as yet but as this is a procedure that is becoming increasingly popular I expect this debate may well start here in 2011.