Eli5 What is food poisoning?
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You becoming unwell as a result of the food you ingest as a result of something in the food (e.g not an allergy)
With modern technology in production, packaging and home refrigeration it’s usually a result of bacteria or viruses contaminating the food. However it can be from the food being contaminated with something (eg some kind of chemical), or the food being old and itself breaking down and producing toxic substances (like if you had a sealed jar of something that’s never been opened and was heat treated, so no bacteria in it, it will still start to breakdown eventually).
With the bacterial or viral contamination, you get sick by one of two mechanisms, or the two combined. Either you get an infection with the bacteria or virus. For example campylobacter. This usually takes a day or so to develop symptoms.
The other mechanism would be that the bacteria (wouldn’t happen with viruses) produce some substance that your body responds to. In these cases the symptoms are usually much quicker to develop. For example botulism can potentially develop symptoms within an hour of consuming contaminated food. Also off seafood can make you start vomiting within 15mins of consumption.
The reason for the different timing of symptoms between the two is that with infection there needs to be time for the bacteria or viruses to multiple enough to cause symptoms, where as the other can produce symptoms quickly without needing to multiple due to it being a direct poison (not sure that’s the right term to use but hopefully you get the idea).
The majority of food poisoning we get in developed countries from infectious causes is horrible but to a healthy adult usually not life threatening. You just need to ride it out and try to stay hydrated.
However there are some forms that can be lethal if not treated. One is the botulism I mentioned above. Thankfully rare now. But it causes a progressive paralysis of muscles that eventually includes the muscles that we use to breath. Ultimately the toxin produced gets used up and the paralysis will pass, but you might need artificially ventilated until that happens. Most cases are due to only the toxin being ingested, and not bacterial infection from the food. It most often happens with tinned or jarred food and something has gone wrong in the processing allowing the bacteria to develop, but when the tins/jars are heat treated the bacteria is killed. Unfortunately the toxin it has already produced and is in the food, doesn’t break down with the heat treatment, so it can still cause food poisoning. But don’t worry, as I said, this form of food poisoning is rare. Most cases of your typical food poisoning have you stuck in the bathroom for a few days
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