Food Poisoning

• Food poisoning is a common infection that affects millions of people in the United States each year.
• Most commonly, patients complain of vomiting, diarrhea, and crampy abdominal pain.
• People should seek medical care if they have an associated fever, blood in their stool, signs and symptoms of dehydration, or if their symptoms do not resolve after a couple of days.
• Treatment focuses on keeping the patient well hydrated.
• Most cases of food poisoning resolve on their own.
• Prevention is key and depends upon keeping food preparation areas clean, good hand washing, and cooking foods thoroughly.

Food poisoning might be described as a food borne disease. Food that contains a toxin, chemical or infectious agent (like a bacterium, virus, parasite, or prion) and cause symptoms in the body are considered types of food poisoning by most investigators. Those symptoms may be related only to the gastrointestinal tract causing vomiting or diarrhea or may involve other organs such as the kidney, brain or muscle.

Typically most food borne diseases cause vomiting and diarrhea that tend to be short lived and resolve on their own, but dehydration and electrolyte abnormalities may develop. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 76 million people become ill from food related diseases each year resulting in 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths.

Source: MedicineNet.com
http://www.medicinenet.com/food_poisoning/article.htm