--- title: Ig Nobel Prize 2014: Bacon Cured Pork Stopped Nosebleed description: Doctors who used cured pork to stop an uncontrollable nosebleed won an Ig Nobel Prize canonical: https://time.com/3403537/ig-nobel-prize-2014-cured-pork-nosebleeds/ author: Melissa Locker article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-09-19T15:53:15.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:48:25.029Z og:title: Ig Nobel Prize 2014: Bacon Cured Pork Stopped Nosebleed og:description: Doctors who used cured pork to stop an uncontrollable nosebleed won an Ig Nobel Prize og:url: https://time.com/3403537/ig-nobel-prize-2014-cured-pork-nosebleeds/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Ig Nobel Prize 2014: Bacon Cured Pork Stopped Nosebleed twitter:description: Doctors who used cured pork to stop an uncontrollable nosebleed won an Ig Nobel Prize twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Could Bacon Stop Nosebleeds? > Sponsored content. 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Charles Krupa / AP Michigan doctors who used cured pork to stop a nosebleed won a 2014 Ig Nobel prize, [awarded by](http://www.improbable.com/ig/) the _Annals of Improbable Research_ magazine at Harvard University for especially imaginative scientific achievements. Dr. Sonal Saraiya and her team at the Detroit Medical Center decided to try the folk remedy as a “last resort” after failed attempts to stop an uncontrollable nosebleed in a 4-year-old who suffers from Glanzmann thrombasthenia, a rare condition in which blood does not properly clot. They stuffed [strips of cured pork](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22224315) into the child’s nostrils twice, and the hemorrhaging ceased. Why did it work? “There are some clotting factors in the pork,” she said, [the Associated Press reports](http://bigstory.ap.org/article/7922e0fefcd14b438b27c47d4558273b/ig-nobel-winner-using-pork-stop-nosebleeds), “and the high level of salt will pull in a lot of fluid from the nose.” The awards also recognized researchers who explored whether owning a cat is bad for your mental health (it might be), Japanese scientists who studied whether banana peels are actually slippery (they’re not), and Norwegian biologists who set out to discover if people dressed like polar bears could scare reindeers (they can). ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3403537/ig-nobel-prize-2014-cured-pork-nosebleeds/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3403537/ig-nobel-prize-2014-cured-pork-nosebleeds/"},"headline":"Could Bacon Stop Nosebleeds?","datePublished":"2014-09-19T15:53:15.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:48:25.029Z","description":"Doctors have been recognized for using cured pork to stop a 4-year-old's uncontrollable nosebleed","url":"https://time.com/3403537/ig-nobel-prize-2014-cured-pork-nosebleeds/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Science topic","Bacon","health","Food and Beverage"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Melissa Locker","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/melissa-locker/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3403537/ig-nobel-prize-2014-cured-pork-nosebleeds/","name":"Could Bacon Stop Nosebleeds?"}}]}] ```