Foodborne Illnesses
Foodborne illnesses and foodborne diseases can come from contamination of your food, meat from ill animals, from toxic chemicals and even from pathogens like fungi that grow on plants.The CDC (Centers for Disease Control) estimates that there are 128,000 cases of food illness requiring hospitalization each year, with 3000 deaths.
Even more astounding, they report that 1 in 6 Americans will experience an illness caused by food—each year! Most of us recover in a day or two, but the very old, the very young and people with weakened immune systems, are often not so fortunate.
Listeria
Fruits and vegetables can harbor diseases.
Foodborne Diseases While many foodborne diseases have similar symptoms, lab tests need to be run, to determine exactly what is causing your food-related illness. Because the sources of illness are so varied, there is no common foodborne disease syndrome, with common symptoms. For example, causes of food poisoning include: - Poisonous Chemicals - Pesticides and other chemicals can cause illness.
- Disease Causing Microbes - including bacteria and viruses
- Parasites
- Natural toxins - Occasionally poisonous mushrooms have contaminated food, or people have eaten poisonous reef fish that they caught.
What Does Food Illness Look Like?Just like any other illness, there is usually an incubation period, or a time between eating the contaminated food and when you get sick. This can be anywhere from a couple of hours—to days or weeks.During this time, the toxic substances or microbes silently pass through the stomach and then attach to the intestinal walls. Some stay here, some produce toxic substances that go into your bloodstream and some actually invade other parts of your body. Most commonly, you may have nausea, diarrhea and abdominal cramping, but, depending on what you’ve eaten, you could have other symptoms. Usually your symptoms are gone in just a few days. However, if you don’t get well, or you know that you have a compromised immune system, you should consider consulting your doctor. If you have been caught ill, and you have suffered further injuries because of a negligent doctor or health official, you can always discuss things with the clinical negligence lawyers at www.irwinmitchell.com.
Get online advice from a doctor here.
Foodborne Illnesses to Pandemic Flu and Emergency Preparedness
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