Last month, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced an E. coli outbreak affecting romaine lettuce and grocery stores pulled this green from their shelves, some people joked that the CDC had basically said pie was safer to eat than salad. Happy Thanksgiving America!
Of course, we knew we could eat lots of other leafy greens, that weren’t affected by the recall and that E. coli isn’t a laughing matter, but how many of us knew what it really was?
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, E. coli is the name of a type of bacteria that lives in your intestines and in the intestines of animals. Although most types of E. coli are harmless, some types can make you sick. The worst type of E. coli, known as E. coli O157:H7, makes a toxin called Shiga toxin, which causes bloody diarrhea and can sometimes cause kidney failure and even death.
Signs and symptoms of E. coli O157:H7 infection typically begin three or four days after exposure to the bacteria, though you may become ill as soon as one day after to more than a week later.
There are no treatments to cure the infection, so most people with E. coli are advised to follow the same practices they would if they had a typical stomach virus: get rest and consume clear liquids. However, for more serious cases, or in situations where the kidneys are affected, patients will need to be hospitalized for supportive care, including IV fluids, blood transfusions and dialysis.
Resources
https://www.cdc.gov/ecoli/2018/o157h7-11-18/index.html
https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/22/health/romaine-lettuce-recall-memes-trnd/index.html
https://www.foodsafety.gov/poisoning/causes/bacteriaviruses/ecoli/index.html
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/e-coli/symptoms-causes/syc-20372058
