Demi Moore: let leeches suck my blood

First, shave your body. Then immerse yourself in turpentine. And when the stinging stops, allow leeches to feast on your blood.

It sounds like a particularly refined form of torture. But Demi Moore swears by it, as a way of looking healthy and far younger than her 45 years.

The secret, says Miss Moore, is an extremely alternative beauty therapy.

In New York to promote her new film Flawless, Moore told U.S. talk show host David Letterman: "I feel like I've always been someone looking for the cutting edge of things that optimise your health and healing.

Leech therapy has a long history - ancient Egyptian doctors once considered them a cure-all.

Today, they are sometimes used in plastic and reconstructive surgery to assist in the reattachment of severed body parts.

"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.

"It detoxifies your blood - I'm feeling very detoxified right now.

"I did it in some woman's house lying on her bed. We did a little sampler first, which is in the belly button.

"It crawls in and you feel it bite down on you and you want to go. Then you relax and work on your breathing just to kind of relax.

"You watch it swell up on your blood, watching it get fatter and fatter - then when it's super drunk on your blood it just kind of rolls over like it's stumbling out of the bar."

Miss Moore explained how she prepared herself for the leeches. "You have to do a turpentine bath first - that's part of the therapy," she said.

Another key to Miss Moore's youthful looks, which she failed to mention on the show, is the 220,000 she spent on a head-to-toe makeover five years ago.

She was reported to have had liposuction to her hips, thighs and stomach, breast implants, brow lifts, collagen injections, knee surgery, a breast lift, her teeth veneered and laser whitened, chemical skin peeling and a long course of exercise coaching.

The actress became famous in the 1990s with films including Ghost, in which she starred opposite Patrick Swayze, and Indecent Proposal with Woody Harrelson and Robert Redford.

(Source: Agencies)