Demi Moore has revealed on Letterman that the secret to her stunning looks is the use of "leech therapy" to suck toxins out of her blood. Of course, it has nothing to do with her diet advisers, personal trainers, alleged surgery (which she convincingly denies) , et cetera.

I really, really hate celebrity gossip, and just googling Demi Moore's cosmetic surgery made me want to vomit at all the celebrity bitching sites on the web. Frankly, the idea of grown men and women devoting their professional lives to worshiping, stalking or blogging about B-list celebs is, well, revolting to me. But I do have a God-given duty to call out woo when I see it. Well, not a duty as much as a desire, and I don't believe in God, but you get the general idea.

The video is attached below, unless Youtube pulls it - watch from 3:30 onwards. Moore claims that leeches are able to detoxify her blood, resulting in the 45-year-old's youthful appearance.

The treatment involves shaving the body, covering yourself in turpentine, and then letting the leeches go to work in certain areas, including the belly-button (which makes me squirm just to type it). According to Moore "they have a little enzyme that when they are biting down in you it gets released in your blood and generally you bleed for quite a bit - and your health is optimised". She went on to say that "it detoxifies your blood - I'm feeling very detoxified right now".

As disturbing as the treatment sounds, what's worse is the uncritical way that the papers report on it. Even normally sober(ish) broadsheets like the Telegraph lead with the headline "Demi Moore uses leeches to detoxify blood". Nearly all of them go on to talk about how the Ancient Egyptians used leeches all the time, and how they're increasingly used in medicine (often, ironically, in cosmetic surgery). None of them think to criticize the claim, or point out that it is - to quote a term I learned from some American bloggers - bat-shit insane.

As the ever-excellent John Hawks points out, while leeches do have anti-coagulating properties (unsurprisingly since they want to suck your blood, and therefore have a vested interest in not letting it clock too soon), but the idea that they inject detoxifying enzymes into your blood is pretty crazy. How would they produce enough? And how would flooding the blood with enzymes not cause your immune system to go nuts? Besides, if your blood is full of toxins, you've probably got bigger concerns with your liver and kidney function.

A bit of googling soon turns up some leech therapists. Leech breeders Lodeksa provide this helpful explanation of medicine. "When does disease begin? When a cell gets sick. And a healthy cell gets sick when it is deprived of needed oxygen and nutrition, and cannot clear toxins out. Biologically active substances in leech saliva help the cells to absorb the necessary nutrition and to eliminate toxic waste. " It all sounds very medical, but it's bollocks, no such "biologically active substances" beyond the well documented are known to exist. Still, it's a good way to deprive body-conscious celebs of some of their hard-earned cash.

PS - Of course this being the Daily Mail, we can't leave without a brief look at the comments of Britain's most humour-less newspaper readers. Bette Davis from Margate manages to leave us this gem "So what? We've all had leech therapy - have you seen how much these MP parasites suck us dry with their expenses claims?" Surely a career in satire beckons. Or not...

PPS - Also, note the sheer depths to which the Daily Mail plunges with the headline "Sadie Frost spotted holidaying in the same bikini she wore three years ago". What quality journalism.