Food Poisonings: An indicator of Unhealthy Nutrition

Abstract

Food poisonings ar e nıost common and important health problem both in developed and developing coııntrics . For the healtlıy nutrition, uncontanıinaied foods must be consumed as well as an adecjuate and balanced diet. This is particularly important in childhood, because freqııeııt food poisonings nıay lead t o malnııtrition. In the present study, we ainıed to evaluate the frecjııency of food poisoning amoııg patients with poisoning who admitted to Ege University Medical Faculty, Emergency Department. Of the total 2568 cases with poisoning between January 1995-July 1997, 615 (23.9%) were food poisoning. The patients with food poisoning were 0-18 years old in 276 (44.9%) of the cases and older than 18 years in 339 (55.1%) of the cases. Food poisoning was most freqently (34.5%) seen in the fail. Eighty-Uvo percent of the cases were mild and were treated at the outpatient department. Only 3 adult (0.5%) patients were died fromfood poisoning. Tlıese data denıonstrated t hat food poisoning ranks second a f ter the drııg poisoning amoııg ali types of poisonings in our Hospıtal. A reasonable solııtion to this problem is the education of the commutnity.