There is never a shortage of gullible people ready to believe whatever nonsense they hear or read about. We have precisely the same sorts of phenomenon today, and in general these fads are a consequence of (a) people being simple-minded, and (b) having far too much time on their hands, enabling them to obsess about themselves and their supposed problems. It's very much a rich world problem. Poor people are too busy surviving to invent silly health fetishes for themselves.