Understanding Food Poisoing

Food poisoning is a mild or sometimes a serious digestive problem caused by the consumption of unhygienic or contaminated food. It is usually characterized by nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, dehydration as early or mild symptoms. But in serious cases it can even cause bloody stools and nervous damage in infected person. Normally we take it as a simple or a routine gastric problem but it can be life threatening issue in severe cases particularly when patient’s immune system is not strong enough to defend against attacking bacteria and intoxicants.

According to CDC (Centers for Disease Control) only in United States about 76 million gastric problems are caused by food poisoning. It is not confined to this extent only; food poisoning is also causing serious life and economic problem in the form of 5,000 deaths per year and $1 billion spent in medical cost and manpower loss. Particularly those who are passionate about visiting new places and tasting new food items travel from one place to another and consume various types of foods at roadsides. Such travelers are more prone to suffer from serious food poisoning a condition which is commonly known as traveler’s diarrhea or Montezuma’s revenge.

Main Categories of Food Poisoning

Basically food poisoning is divided into two main categories:

Food Infection
Food Intoxication

Food Infection is mainly caused by infectious organisms like bacteria and viruses which infect the body after transmitting through contaminated foods or drinks. These infectious organisms are already present in the food either caused by surrounding polluted environment or transmitted through food handlers who are not conscious about hygienic conditions required to prepare healthy foods.

Food Intoxication is mainly caused by exotoxins produced by pathogenic bacteria which contaminates the food and causes serious health problems upon its consumption. Other organism causing food intoxication includes viruses, prions and parasites etc.

Such mistakes mostly happens at busy food places in streets or crowded public places where thousands of people ingest contaminated food or drink unconsciously particularly at some specific event like Christmas or Easter. Therefore after such events we come across a lot of news about food poisoning infecting a large section of society. If such problem infects group of people and causes serious health concerns then we call it an ‘outbreak’.

As food poisoning can become a life threatening problem if contaminated food is consumed in large quantity or if person’s health condition is already not in the position of defending the body against intoxicants attack therefore it is suggested that the main preventive measure against food poisoning is to be very much conscious about food hygienic condition and consult the doctor in case of any mild symptom as soon as possible.