Here is the continuation of yesterday’s post about the worst foodborne illness complications. Today we cover the top five nastiest complications.
5. Organ Damage
Most “simple” food poisonings are anything but simple. While most food pathogens are not considered a serious threat to a normal healthy person, foodborne pathogens can infect and threaten the life of anyone unfortunate enough to ingest the microbe or toxin. Many of these foodborne illness complications can cause irreparable damage to affected organs and systems. Case in point, it is not just the kidneys that can suffer from failure during a bout with hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), internal damage could lead to removal of damaged intestines and even cause liver damage. Sepsis can cause any affected organ system to fail from severe poisoning, leaving damage to organs that may never fully recover. Heart problems can arise from inflammation from food poisoning that gets into the blood. There have even been reported incidents of brain damage occurring from severe seizures related to complications from foodborne illness.
4. Sepsis
Often incorrectly referred to as blood poisoning, sepsis (sometimes called septicemia) is a whole body inflammatory response to the presence of an infection in the blood. To greatly oversimplify, the blood becomes something the body wants to reject. Food pathogens that get ingested pass through the intestines and get into the blood. The blood circulates the pathogens throughout, exposing every organ and system to the pathogen. As the blood and every organ system now become pathogenic with bacteria, the body begins to shut down. The prognosis for a septic patient is not very good. In the most severe cases, patients have only a 50% survivability rate with a diminished life expectancy. An infection with almost any food bacteria, from Salmonella, Campylobacter, E. coli to Listeria, can lead to sepsis.
3. Stillbirths
Pregnant women face a host of concerns when it comes to food and food safety. While all foodborne illnesses should be a concern for an expecting mother, there is one in particular that should get special attention. Listeriosis is a foodborne illness caused by a genus of bacteria called Listeria. Listeriosis has a propensity to end pregnancies early. For healthy individuals, Listeria contamination might occur without the victim even knowing that he or she ever consumed the foodborne pathogen. But for very young children, infants and pregnant women listeriosis is a very dangerous foodborne illness. As many as 20% of all confirmed cases of listeriosis end tragically; recent studies indicate that pregnant women are at even higher risk of listeriosis than previously thought.
2. Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome (HUS)
Hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) is a rare blood disease that often results in kidney failure. Hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) has been closely linked to a bacterial infection of E. coli O157:H7. In fact, the number one cause of hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) in the U.S. is infection with bacteria from the E. coli O157 group, a group of Shiga-toxin producing E. coli (STEC). While hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) is more likely to occur in children than it is in adults (Hemolytic uremic syndrome is the leading cause of acute kidney failure for U.S. children), it is adults who are more likely to die from severe hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) complications. Surviving a battle with hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) can lead to a lifetime of medical procedures and treatments, such as daily medicines, dialysis or even organ transplants.
1. Death
The CDC estimates that over 5000 deaths occur every year as a result of complications from a foodborne illness. That is 5000 people who put their trust in a food to provide nourishment and instead got a bacterium, parasite, virus or other pathogen that took the person’s most important commodity, their life.
