Food Poisoning on the Rise

It seems like reports of foodborne illness are becoming more common these days, from salmonella in tomatoes to E. coli in spinach. But what exactly happens if you catch a foodborne illness? This quick guide to the common calamities should help calm you down.

Botulism

While many cases of botulism are from causes other than food, about 15 percent of the around 145 cases reported each year come from a food outbreak.

Recent food outbreaks of botulism include a recall of products from Castleberry’s Food Company in July 2007 and a green bean contamination in August 2007.

Botulism is caused by the bacteria Clostridium botulinum, a family of bacteria that lives in the soil and in low-oxygen conditions. The bacteria form spores that are dormant until exposed to conditions that support their growth.

The most common food-related outbreaks of botulism are linked to home canning gone awry, but other canned foods can be tainted with the bacteria, which causes paralytic problems in humans.

Symptoms of botulism include doubled or blurred vision, droopy eyelids, slurred speech, dry mouth, trouble swallowing and muscle weakness. Symptoms of foodborne botulism usually turn up 18 to 36 hours after eating tainted food, but it can take up to 10 days for symptoms to occur.

Left untreated, botulism can lead to paralysis of the arms, legs and respiratory muscles. If it comes to that, a mechanical ventilator will be required for treatment. About 3 to 5 percent of people who get any kind of botulism will die from it, and this is due to respiratory failure.

When caught earlier, an anti-toxin derived from horses can be used to stop the spread of the bacteria, and vomiting may be induced to rid the body of tainted food particles.

If you can your own foods, take special care with those that are low in acid. Boiling canned foods for 10 minutes before eating should kill any bacteria. Botulism is also the reason honey isn’t given to infants.

Campylobacter

Campylobacter is an illness caused by bacteria of the same name (it’s also sometimes called campylobateriosis). The bacteria is found in most of the poultry we eat, as it exists in birds and doesn’t make them sick.

It doesn’t make us sick, either, if the chicken we eat is cooked properly and hasn’t been contaminated with raw chicken juices. When you hear people talk about how important it is to wash everything when you work with raw chicken, this is the bug they’re warning you against. It can also be killed by oxygen, and freezing seems to lower the number of bacteria found on the chicken.

Campylobacter is the most common bacterial cause of diarrhea in the world, and the illness can be diagnosed from a stool culture. Most people get over the bacteria without medication, just letting the diarrhea run its course, so to speak. It usually goes away within two to five days.

More serious illness may require the use of an antibiotic to clear up, and in some cases people develop arthritis or a very rare nerve disease called Guillain-Barré syndrome after having campylobacter. This disorder causes the body’s immune system to attack the nerves, resulting in paralysis.

Campylobacter is almost always isolated to an individual or small group that ate undercooked poultry, but more widespread outbreaks are possible, usually associated with unpasturized milk or tainted drinking water.

E. coli

E. coli, or, more scientifically, Esherichia coli is actually a large group of bacteria, most of which aren’t harmful. The ones that are bad are known as Shiga toxin-producing E. coli, or STEC. And the most common of these is E. coli O157:H7, which is the one reporters are talking about when they’re talking about E. coli outbreaks.

These bacteria live in the guts of ruminant animals, most notably cattle, but also deer, elk, goats and sheep. In the slaughtering process the intestines can be cut, allowing the bacteria onto the meat. E. coli usually doesn’t make the host animal sick, but when humans ingest it they’re often in for diarrhea, which can be bloody, stomach cramps, vomiting and sometimes a low fever.

Food science nerd Harold McGee reports that about a third of all people who develop E. coli illness need to be hospitalized, and about 5 percent of those die. It’s most dangerous in children. About 5 to 10 percent of those who get infected with E. coli will develop a more serious illness, hemolytic uremic syndrome, which can lead to kidney failure.

The most common culprit for E. coli contamination is ground beef, as grinding meat from many different cows together spreads the bacteria across a wider range of packages. It can also be found in unpasturized milk or apple cider, or cheeses made from raw milk.

Vegetables that come in contact with animal feces can also be tainted with E. coli, as with the spinach outbreak in 2006. People have also been known to get E. coli from swallowing contaminated water (when swimming in a farm pond, for example) or at petting zoos.

Listeria

If you’ve ever been pregnant you’ve probably heard about the dangers of listeriosis, or infection with the bacteria Listeria monocytogenes.

That’s because pregnant women are about 20 times more likely than other healthy adults to get listeriosis, and about a third of all cases of listeria infection strike pregnant women. (Newborns, the elderly, people with weakened immune systems and diseases like cancer, diabetes and kidney disease get most of the other infections.)

Listeria is found in soil and water and especially in places that have been fertilized with manure. The bacteria is carried by animals it doesn’t harm, and it can contaminate animal products including meat, milk and cheese, as well as vegetables that come into contact with the bacteria.

Infections can be caused by uncooked meats, raw-milk cheeses, vegetables and cold cuts or soft cheeses that may be contaminated at the deli counter after processing. Pasteurization and cooking kill listeria, but products can be contaminated after cooking and before packaging or through cross-contamination at the deli.

Fever, muscle aches, nausea or diarrhea are the most common symptoms, but the infection can spread to the nervous system, causing headaches, a stiff neck and convulsions. About 2,500 people become seriously ill in the United States each year from listeria and about 500 die.

Pregnant women who get listeriosis may only exhibit flu-like symptoms, but the illness can cause miscarriage, stillbirth, premature delivery and infection of the newborn. You’ll need a blood test to be sure you have the infection, and both adults and babies can be treated with antibiotics.

Listeria infection can be prevented by thoroughly cooking all meats (even lunchmeat, especially if you’re pregnant), avoiding raw or unpasturized milk, cheese or juice, washing vegetables before eating and cleaning hands, knives and cutting boards after dealing with raw meat.

“Mad cow” disease

Mad cow, properly known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, is a chronic, degenerative disease affecting the nervous systems of cattle. Consumption of infected cattle has been linked to a disease known as variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease in humans, which is always fatal.

While it’s not completely clear how BSE in cattle is connected to vCJD in humans, it’s thought that the disease is passed by eating meat that contains brain tissue. The parts of the cow considered to be most infectious for humans are the brain, spinal cord, retina, optic nerve, and dorsal root and trigeminal ganglia. McGee reports it may also be found in muscles, which means many different cuts of meat may be potentially dangerous.

The disease was spread among cattle when they were given feed containing these parts from sick cows, a practice that has since been stopped.

The illness has killed more than 160 people in Britain and nearly 40 elsewhere in the world, but since the illness has an incubation period of a year or more, it’s likely there are more cases that have yet to surface.

The infectious agent is known as a prion, a kind of protein that carries the disease between cows or from cow to human. If meat you eat has these prions, there’s nothing you can do about it; cooking will not affect it. Symptoms of vCJD include dementia, memory loss, hallucinations and personality changes paired with physical changes such as jerky movements, slurred speech, difficulty walking or changes in posture or gait and seizures.

Death from this disease can happen in a matter of weeks or months, but some people manage to live for years with the disease.

Norovirus

Noroviruses, commonly called Norwalk-like viruses, are a special kind of foodborne illness caused entirely by humans.

When your food preparer is sick with one of these viruses and goes to the bathroom but doesn’t wash his or her hands after, the illness can be transmitted to you. (You can also get it from touching surfaces with norovirus germs on them, then putting your hands in your mouth, or from direct contact with a person with the illness.)

Symptoms can begin as early as 12 hours or as many as 48 hours after exposure and usually include vomiting and diarrhea, abdominal pain, stomach and headaches, low fever and tiredness. Sometimes people who think they have the flu really have a Norwalk-type virus. Some estimates say that as many as 60 percent of the American population has been exposed to one of these viruses by the age of 50, and about 180,000 are sickened every year.

There is no treatment for the illness, but it usually runs its course quickly. You can be contagious up to two weeks after recovery, so if you know you have had a norovirus, be diligent with the handwashing and don’t cook for other people for a few days, just to be safe.

“Ptomaine poisoning”

Ptomaine poisoning is a term you will still sometimes hear people use when referring to food poisoning, but it’s an inaccurate term.

The term comes from an early theory about food poisoning coming from ptoamines, or alkaloids found in animal and vegetable matter when they decay. This is now known not to be the cause of food poisoning, so the term is not used any longer by the medical community.

Salmonella

One of the most famous and common of the foodborne illnesses, salmonella is a bacteria that lives in the intestinal tracts of animals. When feces comes in contact with food that isn’t cooked, the bacteria can be transmitted to humans.

About 40,000 cases of salmonella are reported each year, but since many people don’t seek treatment it’s thought the number of people who get it might be 30 or more times larger than the number of reported cases.

Salmonella doesn’t make the animals that carry it sick, and food that’s tainted with the bacteria doesn’t look or smell any differently than safe food. Salmonella is a problem when it gets onto foods that aren’t normally cooked (as was the problem with the 2008 tomato outbreak) or when meat that’s been tainted isn’t cooked properly.

Salmonella infection usually causes diarrhea, fever or abdominal cramps within 12 to 72 hours after infection. The illness generally resolves itself on its own within four to seven days, but it’s important for people with salmonella to get plenty of fluids to make up for the diarreha.

Antibiotics may also be used to treat salmonella, but it’s usually not necessary unless the bacteria spread to the intestines. People with compromised immune systems, the very young and the very old may have more trouble fighting the infection themselves and may need more medical intervention.

Salmonella sometimes leads to Reiter’s syndrome, a condition of painful joints, eye irritation and painful urination that can last for months or years and may in turn lead to chronic arthritis, but this is pretty rare.

The best way to prevent salmonella infection is to always cook meat and eggs to the suggested temperatures and be careful not to contaminate other foods with the juices from uncooked meat, poultry or eggs.

Staph

Staphylococcus aureus, more commonly known as staph, is a common cause of food poisoning. Staph can linger in foods such as meat, poultry, eggs, dairy products, meat, egg, pasta and potato salads, sandwich fillings and filled baked goods like eclairs and cream pies.

Staph can grow even in the refrigerator, and infested food won’t have an off odor to let you know you shouldn’t eat it.

People who eat food that has staph in it usually get sick very quickly and will usually have nausea, vomiting and abdominal cramping. In more severe cases people may have headaches, muscle cramps and changes in blood pressure.

The illness usually resolves in two or three days. Diagnosis of staph food poisoning can be made by examining suspect food, since about half of all healthy people have staph on and in their bodies all the time. Animals and humans are the main transmitters of staph, but it also can exist in the air and in water, milk, dust and sewage, as well as in food and on food equipment.

The number of people who typically get staph in a year is unknown because the symptoms are so similar to other food-borne illnesses and it is often misdiagnosed. Many people who are sickened in this way never go to the doctor. The treatment for a staph food poisoning is simply to endure as comfortably as possible until symptoms pass, being careful to prevent dehydration.

The best way to avoid staph food poisoning is to practice basic food safety: don’t let different kinds of meats touch each other, cook meat to recommended safe temperatures, don’t let food sit out for more than two hours, and keep cold foods under 40 degrees and warm foods over 140 degrees whenever possible.

Trichinosis

Trichinosis, also called trichinellosis, is an infection caused by eating animals infected with the larvae of a worm called trichinella. It can be contracted by eating wild carnivorous animals or domesticated pigs.

This infection is pretty gross to describe. When you eat tainted meat, the larvae or cysts of the worms are ingested, and your stomach acid dissolves the cyst, releasing the worm, which matures in a couple of days in your small intestine.

The worms mate in there and the females lay eggs, which then develop into immature worms, travel through the arteries into the muscles and there form cysts again.

You might get a stomachache, nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, fatigue or fever in one or two days after eating tainted meat, and two to eight weeks later you may have further symptoms such as headaches, fever and chills, coughing, eye swelling, muscle or joint pain, itchy skin, constipation or diarrhea. Many mild cases go undiagnosed and go away on their own, but if you have a severe case it can be treated with drugs.

Trichinosis is very rare, with only about a dozen cases reported each year. Prevent it by cooking pork and wild game animals thoroughly. You can also freeze pork for 20 days to kill worms, but that doesn’t always work with game animals.

(By Sarah E. White for CalorieLab Calorie Counter News)

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This entry was posted on Monday, June 23rd, 2008 and is filed under Food dangers, Food safety. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed. Permalink.