“Can I eat hamburgers?”
This is a question I get a lot these days. I was a person who liked fast food quite a bit in the past. I don’t personally enjoy hamburgers right now. Not because I am afraid of so-called’hamburger disease’, but because I am worried about lifestyle-related diseases (in the past, it was called adult disease) after middle-aged, and especially because abdominal obesity is directly related to the type of food you consume.
Recently, hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) occurred after suffering from intestinal hemorrhagic bowel syndrome, and because of this, there is a lot of controversy about whether it is okay to eat hamburgers after seeing an article of a child undergoing peritoneal dialysis due to poor kidney function. In September of last year, a 4-year-old child with his father ate a hamburger at a fast food restaurant and suffered from abdominal pain and diarrhea after 2-3 hours, and three days after the onset, he was admitted to the intensive care unit and was diagnosed with hemolytic uremic syndrome caused by intestinal hemorrhagic bowel syndrome. Do it. Although the serious situation was overcome, the kidney function was severely impaired, and he is still receiving peritoneal dialysis.
Guardians of children claim that the hamburger’s undercooked meat patties are the cause, while the fast food company refutes that there is no medical evidence that the outbreak is due to hamburgers. Other customers who ate hamburgers at the store on the same day said nothing was wrong, and the company claims that children’s illness is not related to hamburgers. The guardian filed criminal charges against the company. Eventually, the case of’Hamburger Disease’ is expected to be concluded in court. From a doctor’s point of view, it will not be easy to elucidate the causal relationship between hamburgers and intestinal hemorrhagic bowel syndrome.
In the meantime, in June, a report was reported that six children with intestinal hemorrhagic bowel syndrome had a group outbreak at a daycare center in Wonju, Gangwon-do. Fortunately, 5 people recovered, and only 1 showed symptoms of hemolytic uremic syndrome and are receiving treatment. It is said that children did not eat hamburgers at the time.
Intestinal hemorrhagic bowel syndrome is food poisoning that causes abdominal pain and bloody degenerative diarrhea after eating food or water contaminated with E. coli. It is a disease that was once buzzing due to the outbreak caused by O-157 E. coli in the past. Since then, it has been designated as the first type of legal infectious disease, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is monitoring intensively.
As it is a disease related to contaminated food, it is particularly likely to develop in summer. E. coli is literally a bacterium that lives in the large intestine of humans or animals. It usually develops after eating food contaminated with feces (meat including animal’s intestines, contaminated water and vegetables, etc.).
Even with bowel hemorrhagic bowel syndrome, these days, if symptomatic treatment is done well, it usually recovers without major complications. However, serious complications and sequelae may be left for infants, toddlers, and the elderly with poor immune function. In particular, intestinal hemorrhagic bowel syndrome in infancy and infancy is the most common cause of hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), which seriously impairs kidney function.
Even if the animal’s feces are not directly contaminated, infection can also occur through utensils (knives, cutting boards, dishcloths, etc.) that cook contaminated food during the food preparation process. Therefore, it is recommended to sterilize cookware as often as possible, soak vegetables in drinking water for 5 minutes, then wash them in running water 2-3 times before use. E. coli dies easily if foods that can be heated are cooked at 60 degrees or more for about 20 minutes or longer. So, with a little more care, you can fully prevent it.
Whether the hamburger patties were undercooked, the meat patties were contaminated, or whether there was another source of contamination will be revealed through the prosecution’s investigation. I hope that the pain of children and their families who have to undergo peritoneal dialysis for more than 10 hours a day because of a serious illness after eating their favorite hamburger anyway, will be resolved as soon as possible. How about the’Mom’s Table Hamburger’, which is made and fed by a housewife at home, rather than preventing children from eating their favorite hamburgers for vacation.
Kimhae News Taeyong Hong, Director of Hansol Rehabilitation Nursing Hospital