A guide to avoiding "pitfalls" in New Year's diet: Stay away from acute gastroenteritis and pay attention to these details!

The Spring Festival should be a warm time filled with laughter, family reunion and delicious food. However, behind this excitement, there are some hidden dangers that may threaten health.

On February 5, the author learned from the Emergency Medicine Department of Hunan Provincial Second People's Hospital (Provincial Brain Hospital) that during the Spring Festival holiday, the department admitted a number of patients who were "targeted" by acute gastroenteritis due to dietary problems, which really cast a shadow on the joyous festive atmosphere.

Various “culprits”: the crisis hidden behind delicious food

Zhou Qibing, chief physician and director of the emergency medicine department of Hunan Provincial Second People's Hospital (Provincial Brain Hospital), said that during the Spring Festival, people have a wide variety of dietary choices, which also creates "opportunities" for the onset of acute gastroenteritis. The first to bear the brunt are takeout and street stalls. During the Spring Festival, many families reduce the frequency of cooking, and takeout and street stalls have become the dining options for many people.

However, the production environment of these foods is often difficult to ensure hygiene, and the freshness and storage conditions of the ingredients also pose risks. In such circumstances, people with fragile stomachs can easily be "taken advantage of" by bacteria and viruses if they are not careful, causing gastrointestinal discomfort.

Milk tea and barbecue, this seemingly perfect "combination", also made many people "fall in love" during the Spring Festival. In the cold winter, a cup of steaming hot milk tea with fragrant barbecue is a temptation that many people can hardly resist. However, the high sugar and high fat in milk tea, plus the greasiness and spiciness of barbecue, the combination of the two will put a great burden on the stomach. This alternating hot and cold, overly greasy and spicy eating habits can easily irritate the gastrointestinal mucosa, disrupt the normal digestion and absorption function of the intestines, and then cause abdominal pain, diarrhea and other symptoms of acute gastroenteritis.

Overnight dishes are also a major cause of gastrointestinal problems during the Spring Festival. During the Spring Festival, families often prepare sumptuous dishes for dinner. If they cannot finish the dishes in one meal, some people will not want to throw them away and save them for the next meal. However, during the storage process, overnight dishes are prone to breed bacteria, especially in a high temperature environment, where bacteria reproduce faster. When eating these overnight dishes contaminated by bacteria, the stomach and intestines will naturally "protest", leading to symptoms such as diarrhea and vomiting.

Scientific response: key links cannot be ignored

Once you suffer from acute gastroenteritis, timely and scientific response is crucial. The first priority is to prevent dehydration and electrolyte imbalance. Frequent diarrhea can cause the body to quickly lose a lot of water and electrolytes, such as sodium, potassium, and chloride. These electrolytes are essential for maintaining the normal physiological functions of the body. Once they are out of balance, they may cause serious consequences such as arrhythmia and muscle weakness. Therefore, after the onset of diarrhea symptoms, patients should replenish water and electrolytes in time. Dehydration symptoms can be relieved by drinking an appropriate amount of light salt water, oral rehydration salts, etc.

The use of antibiotics is also an issue that needs to be treated with caution when treating acute gastroenteritis. Many people think that they have gastroenteritis because of bacterial infection and ask the doctor to use antibiotics. In fact, the causes of acute gastroenteritis are complex, and not all cases are caused by bacterial infection.

Some may be caused by viral infection, while others are caused by improper diet, allergies, etc. In this case, blindly using antibiotics will not only fail to play a therapeutic role, but may also destroy the normal balance of intestinal flora, leading to intestinal microecological imbalance and aggravating the condition. Therefore, whether to use antibiotics must be decided under the guidance of a doctor based on the specific cause and condition.

Healthy eating: prevention is key

As the saying goes, "prevention is better than cure." During the Spring Festival, when food is plentiful, maintaining healthy eating habits is the key to preventing acute gastroenteritis. First, choose regular restaurants. Whether you order takeout or dine out, pay attention to the hygiene and food quality of the restaurant. Try to avoid eating food from unknown sources or in poor hygiene conditions to reduce the risk of infection.

Secondly, we should eat a reasonable diet and avoid overeating. During the Spring Festival, there are a variety of delicious foods, which can easily increase people's appetite, but we should also pay attention to controlling the amount of food we eat. At the same time, we should pay attention to the combination of food, eat more vegetables and fruits, eat less greasy, spicy, and irritating foods, and keep the diet balanced and light.

Finally, proper storage of food should not be neglected. For unfinished meals, put them in the refrigerator in time and heat them up fully before eating. Try to avoid eating overnight dishes, especially vegetables, because the nitrite content in overnight vegetables will increase, which is not good for health.

Hunan Medical Chat Special Author: Li Zhaohui, Department of Emergency Medicine, Hunan Second People's Hospital (Provincial Brain Hospital)

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(Edited by Wx)