There is a noticeable increase in visits to emergency rooms during the holiday season that includes individuals suffering from chewing on a part of a turkey or similar foods that get stuck in their throats. You may be tempted to look for home remedies such as drinking cola instead, which helps dislodge the food and saves you an emergency endoscopy. Of course, cola is inexpensive, widely available, and has no side effects (if any). However, you might want to think twice before ignoring the emergency room, according to a new study published in the British Medical Journal which concluded that this popular home remedy might not help clear a blocked esophagus.
The Study and Findings
Emergency physician Elise Tibi led this project after noticing online that this was a really common belief, from advice sites to Wikipedia, in addition to a true story in a British newspaper about saving a life with cola. “I even heard doctors recommend it,” said co-author Arjan Breijnoord, a gastroenterologist at the University of Amsterdam Medical Centers. “Food stuck in the esophagus can be really dangerous, so it is important that people receive the correct treatment,” he added. “That’s why we wanted to investigate if this works.”
What is “Esophageal Food Bolus Impaction”?
The technical term is “esophageal food bolus impaction,” more commonly known as “steakhouse syndrome” or “backyard barbecue syndrome.” Typically, unchewed pieces of meat (steak, poultry, pork) are the ones that get stuck, and when this happens, the individual experiencing this problem will have difficulty swallowing to the point where they start to gag (due to the inability to swallow saliva). They may also experience chest or neck pain, and there is always a risk of perforating the esophagus, leading to food being sucked into the lungs. Therefore, going to the emergency room is necessary.
Previous Studies and Findings
The use of soft drinks like cola to relieve food blockages has been around for at least 20 years, if not more, with cola mentioned as an effective treatment in a research paper in 1993 (although the study was small, involving only eight patients). Among recent studies was also a retrospective case series from 2018 involving a review of records for 19 patients who ended up in the emergency room with esophageal obstruction and drank cola as an intervention. This worked in more than half (59 percent) of those patients. However, the authors acknowledged that the retrospective nature of their study led to several limitations and a risk of bias in interpretation.
The Recent Study and Findings
Breijnoord and others conducted a randomized controlled trial of 51 patients admitted to emergency rooms in five Dutch hospitals between December 2019 and June 2022. Of these, 28 patients were given cola regularly, while the remaining 23 waited for the blockage to clear naturally. An endoscopy was performed if the obstruction did not clear naturally in both groups during the specified time.
The results: Obstructions cleared naturally in 61 percent of the subjects, regardless of the group they were in, so giving cola did not lead to a higher rate of improvement. However, it is still a relatively small study. There were no side effects, so further studies administering cola before an endoscopy may be beneficial, according to the authors. It is still advisable to conduct a follow-up endoscopy, as there were underlying conditions contributing to the blockage in 78 percent of those cases.
Source: British Medical Journal, 2023. DOI: 10.1136/bmj-2023-077294 (about DOIs).
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