How can the elderly prevent intestinal infectious diseases in summer?

In summer, the temperature is high, the humidity is high, bacteria multiply quickly, food is easy to spoil, and people like to eat raw and cold food. Therefore, summer is the peak season for intestinal infectious diseases. The elderly are at high risk of intestinal infectious diseases in summer because of their weak body resistance. So, how can the elderly prevent intestinal infectious diseases in summer?

1. What is intestinal infection

Enteric infection mainly refers to infection by intestinal pathogens (mainly bacteria and viruses), such as Vibrio cholerae, Salmonella typhi/paratyphoid, Shigella dysenteriae, etc., and enteroviruses include rotavirus, norovirus, coxsackievirus, etc. Clinical symptoms mainly include fatigue, fever, diarrhea, abdominal pain, etc., and severe cases may cause systemic infection. After standardized treatment, the prognosis is generally good; if not treated in time, the prognosis is poor, and sequelae or even death may remain.

If infected with rotavirus, the incubation period is usually 24 to 48 hours, and the clinical manifestations are related to the severity of the disease. Mild cases do not cause fever, and only show mild diarrhea; more serious patients show sudden onset, watery diarrhea, such as egg drop soup, and may also cause white stools, 3 to 10 times a day, often accompanied by vomiting in the first 1 to 2 days of the disease, generally with moderate fever, but can also reach 39 to 40 degrees Celsius. Patients may also have symptoms of upper respiratory tract infection.

2. Transmission routes of intestinal infectious diseases

The sources of infection are patients and pathogen carriers, and the disease is mainly transmitted through water, food, daily life contact, flies and other media. The general population is susceptible to infection.

Transmission through water: feces and vomitus of patients or pathogen carriers are discharged into water sources, and washing clothes, utensils, hands, etc. contaminated by pathogens can pollute the water. Drinking contaminated water can cause outbreaks of intestinal infectious diseases. Cholera, typhoid fever, and bacillary dysentery are known as the three major waterborne infectious diseases.

Transmission through food: Food may be contaminated by pathogens during production, processing, transportation, storage and sales. Pathogens in food can come from storage containers, dining utensils, hand contact, application of manure and contamination by insects.

Contact transmission: Shaking hands, using or touching clothes, stationery, door handles, coins, etc. may cause the transmission and spread of pathogens.

Insect transmission: flies, cockroaches, etc. can act as mechanical carriers of pathogens, and some pathogens can survive for a period of time in the intestinal tract of insects, and even reproduce. Flies, cockroaches and other insects that move around are also an important cause of the spread of intestinal infectious diseases.

3. Adverse consequences of intestinal infectious diseases in the elderly in summer

1. Cardiovascular and cerebrovascular accidents. This is a complication that cannot be ignored that causes death from acute diarrhea in the elderly. During diarrhea, a large amount of water and ions such as sodium, potassium, calcium, and magnesium in the body are excreted from the stool. The loss of water puts the body in a state of dehydration. At this time, the blood volume in the human body decreases, resulting in increased blood viscosity, slow blood flow, and easy formation of blood clots and blockage of blood vessels. Coronary artery blockage causes angina pectoris and myocardial infarction; cerebral vascular blockage causes ischemic stroke. Sodium, potassium, calcium, and magnesium are important cations in the body. In addition to maintaining blood acid-base balance, they play an important role in maintaining nerve conduction function and heart rhythm. When they are deficient, they can cause serious arrhythmia and sudden death.

2. Causes hypoglycemia. When diarrhea occurs, appetite usually decreases, resulting in insufficient food intake. At this time, the glycogen stored in the body needs to be broken down to maintain blood sugar stability. When the patient does not have enough glycogen stored to convert into blood sugar, the blood sugar in the body will decrease. At this time, the patient will experience a series of hypoglycemia symptoms such as fatigue, sweating, palpitations, pale complexion and syncope. When the blood sugar concentration is lower than 3.0 mmol/L (normal blood sugar concentration is 3.9~6.2 mmol/L), mental symptoms or even coma will occur, which can cause sudden death.

3. Vomiting and diarrhea may cause dehydration, acidosis and electrolyte imbalance.

4. If improperly diagnosed and treated, various complications such as intestinal intussusception, gastrointestinal bleeding, and acute enteritis may occur as the disease progresses.

4. How to treat intestinal infectious diseases in summer?

1. How to prevent and treat dehydration?

The biggest reaction to diarrhea is dehydration. If you cannot go to the hospital in time, you should take oral rehydration salts at home. The main loss of the human body after diarrhea is fluid and electrolytes. Once the human body is dehydrated, it is likely to cause renal failure, which is the main cause of death caused by diarrhea. Intravenous infusion is only suitable for less than 10% of severely dehydrated people.

2. Should I continue eating if I have diarrhea?

Some people think that since they have diarrhea, they should reduce the burden on the intestines and adopt starvation therapy after diarrhea. However, scientific treatment does not advocate this approach. Diarrhea can easily lead to nutritional loss in the body, so even if you have diarrhea, you should supplement your nutrition. You can eat some thin, soft, easily digestible, nutritious food, such as porridge, noodles, egg custard, etc.

3. What medicines should be taken when you have diarrhea?

Once a patient with diarrhea or vomiting appears at home, the first thing to do is to go to the intestinal clinic of the hospital in time for timely and correct treatment and management. Should you use antidiarrheal drugs at home once you have diarrhea? In fact, this practice is incorrect. Because many intestinal infectious diseases often have varying degrees of diarrhea in the early stages of the disease, the excrement can excrete pathogenic bacteria and toxins produced by bacteria in the body, which can reduce the toxic effects on the human body. Of course, if the diarrhea is frequent and lasts for too long, and symptoms of dehydration appear, antidiarrheal drugs should be used as appropriate under the premise of using antibiotics and correcting dehydration.

5. Prevention of intestinal infectious diseases

Intestinal infectious diseases are mainly caused by eating food contaminated by intestinal pathogens or drinking contaminated water. Therefore, it is very important to strictly control the "disease from the mouth". To prevent intestinal infectious diseases in summer, the elderly should pay special attention to the following details in daily life.

1. Do not store food in the refrigerator for more than 7 days. Fresh meat is rich in nutrients, and microorganisms grow and reproduce quickly. In addition to the action of its own enzymes, it is very easy to spoil at room temperature and needs to be frozen at low temperatures. When meat is stored in a household refrigerator, some slow changes will occur, causing the meat to deteriorate. Therefore, the frozen storage period of fresh meat should generally not exceed half a year.

Once cooked, food should be eaten immediately. Cooked food should not be stored at room temperature for more than 4 hours. If it cannot be eaten immediately, cool the food and put it in the refrigerator at low temperature. For refrigerated food, it should be thoroughly reheated before eating. Food stored in the freezer of the refrigerator should generally not exceed 3 months; food in the refrigerator should not exceed 3 days, and even in a refrigerator with high freshness preservation performance, it should not exceed 7 days.

2. Use detergent and hot water to clean the refrigerator every month. The density of bacteria in a household refrigerator is higher than that in a kitchen floor or stove. If the refrigerator temperature is higher than 7°C, bacteria will multiply more rapidly. Therefore, in order to minimize bacterial contamination in the refrigerator, the refrigerator needs to be cleaned with an acidic detergent and hot water every month.

3. After the juice is opened, it should not be stored in the refrigerator for more than 5 days. Many families buy juice and often cannot drink it all at once, so they put it in the refrigerator. During the storage time, the main nutrients of the juice have decreased a lot, and some have even disappeared completely. Freshly squeezed juice preserves the main nutrients in the fruit, but the vitamins in it are unstable and will gradually decompose and lose their activity. Especially vitamin C in juice, which is lost the fastest. Therefore, try to choose juice products that have been out of the factory not long ago, and drink them in time. They cannot be stored for a long time. Hawthorn juice, citrus juice, grape juice, etc. can be stored in the refrigerator for a maximum of 3 to 5 days after opening.

4. When storing sauces, be sure to prevent mold and yeast contamination. When refrigerating chili sauce, bean paste, garlic sauce and other sauces and pickles, be sure to prevent mold and yeast contamination. If hair grows on them, they may have gone bad. Therefore, after opening the sauces or leftover cans of pickles, seal them with plastic wrap and store them in the refrigerator for no more than 1 to 2 weeks.

5. Lentils should be heated thoroughly and cooked thoroughly, and potatoes should be boiled and peeled before eating. A good cooking process can effectively control or even eliminate food safety factors and ensure food safety and hygiene. Poor cooking operations may even become a way of food contamination, increase harmful substances in food, and affect food safety and quality. Lentils, soybeans, potatoes and other foods contain natural toxins, such as lectins and saponins, which can cause gastrointestinal discomfort, abdominal pain, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, etc., which can be destroyed by heating. Therefore, lentils should be thoroughly heated until they are cooked and discolored before they can be eaten; the harmful components in soybeans are trypsin inhibitors, which can migrate into soy milk, so if soy milk is not heated thoroughly, symptoms such as abdominal distension and diarrhea may occur; the harmful substances in potato skins are solanine, which cannot be destroyed by heating, so it is best to peel them before eating, remove the buds, and especially the green skin must be removed.

6. Be careful of bacterial food poisoning caused by cold dishes. Many people make cold dishes in summer and often eat them for several meals. Summer is the season when bacteria multiply in large quantities, and cold dishes are not processed by high temperature cooking, so they are high-risk foods that cause bacterial food poisoning. Therefore, the fruits and vegetables used in cold dishes must be washed and disinfected, and cold dishes should not be eaten every other meal.

There is a greater risk in consuming raw seafood in summer, and you should avoid consuming raw seafood such as stir-fried shrimps, hairy clams, mud snails, drunken shrimps, and drunken crabs.

7. Stored cooked food must be thoroughly reheated before consumption. Bacteria will multiply in the storage process of cooked food, so when eating cooked food stored at home, it must be thoroughly reheated to ensure that the core temperature of the food is above 70°C; or boil it for 5 to 10 minutes to kill the bacteria that grew and multiplied during the storage of the food. Leftovers must also be thoroughly heated before consumption.

8. Process and store raw and cooked food separately. Food processing must follow the order from raw to cooked, store raw and cooked food separately, and separate knives, cutting boards and other raw and cooked tools and containers. When handling cooked food that is directly ingested, use knives and cutting boards designed for cooked food; when handling raw food such as raw fish and raw meat, use knives and cutting boards designed for raw vegetables.

9. When purchasing vegetables that are prone to insects, you should pay attention to whether they are fresh, tender and have no insect eyes. Pay attention to whether pesticides have been used. After removing the yellow leaves, soak them in water for more than half an hour, changing the water 2 to 3 times in the middle, and then cook them.

10. When purchasing food at home, you must strictly control the quality and never buy spoiled poultry, eggs, meat and aquatic products just to save money.

11. It is best not to dine at food stalls or buy unlicensed boxed lunches, and do not organize large-scale dining gatherings on your own.

12. Pay attention to personal hygiene and develop the habit of washing hands before meals and after defecation. Cut nails regularly and change clothes frequently. Tableware such as bowls and chopsticks should be boiled and disinfected regularly.

13. Keep a happy mood, avoid overwork, get enough sleep, increase exercise appropriately, improve your body's immunity and reduce the chance of infection.