Nicotine pouch poisoning of kids under 6 has increased 763% in just 3 years — what the scary symptoms look like
Cigarette smoking has plummeted dramatically since 1965, but in recent years, nicotine use is on the uptick thanks to vapes and nicotine pouches like Zyns, which offer a more discreet way of delivering a nicotine fix than e-cigs.
But a shocking new study published Monday in the journal Pediatrics has revealed that these smoke-free alternatives pose a deadly threat to little children.
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A new study has revealed that these smoke-free alternatives pose a deadly threat to little children.
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Between 2010 and 2023, there were were 134,663 nicotine ingestions among children younger than six, a number based on calls to US poison centers .
But while the rate of ingestion by vapes decreased, poisonings due to nicotine pouches surged by 763% just between 2020 and 2023.
And 76% of those nicotine poisoning cases were in babies and toddlers below the age of 2.
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The majority of these poisonings had little to no side effects and 81.3% didn't even require a trip to the hospital. However, 39 children had serious side effects — and two died.
The toddlers — both under the age of 2 — died after consuming the liquid nicotine found in vapes.
'It's good that the majority of kids in the study actually did pretty well. Most kids had either minor symptoms or no symptoms and didn't require any medical management,' Natalie Rine, the director of the Central Ohio Poison Center at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, told NBC.
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Child poisonings due to nicotine pouches surged by 763% just between 2020 and 2023.
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'But two deaths is a lot, especially for something considered a preventable death.'
The study noted that nicotine pouches — which can contain as much as 6 milligrams of nicotine — were twice as likely to result in a hospital visit than other nicotine products.
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Rine told USA Today that some of the initial symptoms of poisoning are nausea and vomiting — however, this can escalate to high blood pressure, a rapid heart rate, seizures, respiratory failure and even comas, especially with large doses.
To keep your kids safe, she recommends keeping these products out of the house entirely — particularly the pouches, which are often flavored and easy to mistake for candy or other sweets — or locking them up.
Avoid using the products around them, as 'children like to mimic behavior,' she pointed out to USA Today.
Other tips include choosing products with childproof packaging and keeping the national Poison Help Line number (1-800-222-1222) somewhere within clear view at home.
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Yahoo
9 hours ago
- Yahoo
Dentists Are Sharing The Most Horrifying Things They've Witnessed In Someone's Mouth, And It Might Be The Worst Thing I've Ever Read
Earlier this month, I decided to ask dentists and dental hygienists in our very own BuzzFeed Community what turned out to be a pretty graphic question: "What's the most horrifying thing you've seen in someone's mouth or witnessed on the job?" Their answers were gross in an absolutely fascinating way, so, I decided I had to share. You might pull a face at a few of these, but you'll definitely be entertained! So, here are some of people's best answers: Related: 1."Dead bedbugs in a patient's gums." NBC —Anonymous 2."Hairy tongue." —Anonymous, 44, Connecticut, US 3."A teenager whose wisdom teeth were developing so that it was best for her to have them removed by an oral surgeon with IV sedation. She freaked out. She didn't want it done because she was scared of the could easily see over 20 piercings." —Anonymous 4."I'm a dental hygienist and the strangest thing I have found (repeatedly) in people's mouths is pubic hair. You see a little hair sticking out of a person's gums, so you grab a pair of tweezers to pull it out, and it ends up being a long curly pubic hair. 🤢 I have also found a SPROUTED SEED stuffed underneath someone's gums before. 🤣" Warner Bros. —Anonymous, 31, Illinois 5."Periodontist here. I once had a patient who had a massive infection of his wisdom teeth that was starting to come out of his cheek. So what looked like a pimple on his lower right was really the infection starting to drain." HBO / Via "I immediately sent him to a hospital that had an oral surgeon on staff. The tooth was extracted, and he had a drain placed in his face to clear the infection. When your dentist tells you that you have an infection, it doesn't get any better; it only gets worse." —Anonymous, 37, New Jersey Related: 6."I was a dental assistant and took a full-mouth panoramic X-ray of a patient with no teeth. Looked in his mouth and he was right, he had no teeth. Took the X-ray and found he had roots for all his teeth, but they had rotted, and gum tissue had grown up over to cover them. A fascinating extraction surgery followed." —Anonymous 7."Dental hygienist/hygiene educator here with an interesting story and a serious one. The interesting story: A patient lost a front tooth, kept it, cut the root off, attached it to something metal, and then superglued it in — a super creative idea! Unfortunately, superglue is acidic, so it damaged the teeth where he attached his makeshift bridge. But you can't help but admire his outside-the-box thinking." "The serious story: Years ago, I was completing the oral facial (oral cancer) examination on my patient and saw a red patch on the floor of his mouth. I referred him to an ENT, and sure enough, it was cancer, and it needed surgical removal and radiation. It was life-changing for him (though he passed away a few years later) and for me. From then on, I was more confident and took more time completing that exam, and less worried about staying on schedule. Every time thereafter I saw this patient for his cleaning, he hugged me and kissed me on the cheek and thanked me for the extra time he had with his family. Each year, I tell my students this story and tell them how important this exam is to complete, to not worry about the clock, and not to cut it out from their tasks. Worry more about the patient as a whole, and not about if you leave stain behind or a tenacious piece of calculus (tartar). I cried when my patient died, and I tear up every time I teach oral facial exams and think about what he taught me and how grateful he was for me." —Anonymous, 45, New York 8."It wasn't something I saw, exactly, but something I smelled. The patient had cancer, and we could smell it coming from his mouth. No judgment for the bad smell, not his fault, everyone deserves dignity." —Anonymous Related: 9."I'm a dentist. I had a new patient come in with a loose crown. I told him I might be able to just remove the crown after I cleaned it, then recement it back over the tooth. I removed the crown to discover a worm flopping around inside." Dotana / Getty Images "I cleaned out the crown and tooth, recementing it. Then I referred him to his MD for treatment of the worm infestation. I was very careful with my gloves on and face mask, not touching any instruments until they were cleaned and sterilized before they were put away. I nearly lost it." —Anonymous 10."Unfortunately, I am not the only dentist who has had this experience, but fortunately, it has only happened to me once. I had a patient, mid-50s, in whose dentures I found several maggots. Yes, I did leave and go throw up." —Anonymous, 47, Ohio, US 11."Teen patient with a moldy retainer. They never took it out, and there was food and gunk in a layer of slime all over the top of it. And my God, the smell." —Anonymous 12."Many drug users get to a point (and it happens more quickly than you would think) where they unfortunately do not care about oral hygiene. Dental health gets even worse when a person's drug of choice is something like meth. It's always very sad to see and difficult to deal with. Take care of your teeth, kids." —Anonymous, 38 13."Do not smoke after getting your wisdom teeth removed. You do not want a dry socket." —Anonymous Related: 14."I did a lot of free work for underprivileged people and people experiencing homelessness in my city when I was a younger dentist. (Not so much anymore, I miss being able to help, but I'm older now and would get the occasional violent patient.) This wasn't the saddest thing I ever saw, but it was pretty messed up and stuck with me: a child, around 5 or 6, with almost totally decayed teeth. They basically survived off soda, milk, candy, and other junk food." "The only silver lining was that these were baby teeth. I spoke to the mother and did report that the child was being neglected and needed help. This was about 20 years ago; I live in a smallish town, and I know the child ended up living with their grandmother." —Anonymous 15."I don't have any real horror stories, but you'd be surprised how many people don't think about their teeth when it comes to smoking cigarettes! Plenty of smokers worry about their skin prematurely aging, but pay far less mind to oral health. Smokers' breath can get pretty horrific." —Anonymous 16."Maggots." CBS —Anonymous, 48, Seattle, Washington finally: "A guy who had sharpened his incisors and tried to bite the hygienist." —Anonymous, 54 Okay, I know that got pretty gross, but at times, it was touching. Feel free to let me know all your thoughts in the comments! Even better if you have a dental nightmare of your own to share. Or, if you want to write in but prefer to stay anonymous, you can check out this anonymous form! Who knows — your story could be featured in a future BuzzFeed article. Also in Goodful: Also in Goodful: Also in Goodful: Solve the daily Crossword
USA Today
2 days ago
- USA Today
Insomnia is a global epidemic. How do we fix it?
On a special episode (first released on July 24th) of The Excerpt podcast: The question is: Why do we struggle to sleep? Jennifer Senior, a staff writer at The Atlantic, joins The Excerpt to talk about insomnia and what we can do about solving our sleep issues. Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text. Podcasts: True crime, in-depth interviews and more USA TODAY podcasts right here Taylor Wilson: Hello, I'm Taylor Wilson, and this is a special episode of the Excerpt. According to a report released by the American Medical Association earlier this year, one-third of American adults experience acute insomnia, an inability to fall or stay asleep for several days at a time, but one in 10 adults suffer from chronic insomnia. That's an inability to fall or stay asleep three nights a week for three months or more. The condition has potentially debilitating health impacts, including an increased risk of depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and even car accidents. So the question is, why can't we sleep? Here to help me dig into the issue is Jennifer Senior, a staff writer at The Atlantic who recently went on her own journey to solve her insomnia and who shared her story in the magazine. Thank you for joining me, Jennifer. Jennifer Senior: Thanks for having me. Taylor Wilson: So let's start with I guess a 30,000-foot view of the issue. I know you spoke with a lot of sleep specialists, did a lot of independent research for your piece. Jennifer, what's the big picture here on American's trouble with sleep? Jennifer Senior: Right. Yeah. What's funny, I think the story was a little misnamed. I mean, this is really more story about, well, if you can't sleep, don't feel awful about it because there are so many shaming stories about people, whatever solutions people seek out. I do talk in the beginning about the way that the modern world absolutely conspires against sleep, that it just lays waste to your circadian rhythms. That people work two jobs, 16.4% of us work non-standard hours. If you're a white collar kind of professional, you've got these woodpecker like peck, peck, peck, incursions into your life all night and weekend long from your boss's work sort of never ends. I mean, we're just no longer yoked to the rhythms of the earth anymore. We're just part of this whirl of a wired world. Taylor Wilson: In the course of doing your research, was there something in particular that surprised you most about the problem? Jennifer Senior: I'll tell you what surprised me most, just generally. Whenever I interviewed any expert about this, and it didn't matter what species of expert, they could be an epidemiologist, they could be a neurologist, they could be a psychiatrist, they could be a clinician. Most of them said the same thing. There is a slight misconception that you need eight hours of sleep. There is some data saying this. There is another equally robust data set saying 6.5 to 7.4 is associated with the best health outcomes. Now it's very hard to tell. These studies are observational. They're not randomized. There was all sorts of confounds and problems with this, but this one study in particular had a million people in it. It's been replicated. There are plenty of people who believe this data and people vary. And over the course of a lifetime, your individual sleep capacity could change. In a funny way, that was what surprised me most. Right? This mantra, which is kind of a tyranny, get eight hours or else. Taylor Wilson: Well, you talked Jennifer about the modern world conspiring against us and our sleep, and I guess let's try to outline a few of the possible causes of what you call a public health emergency, right? What can you share with us here on this? Jennifer Senior: About other causes, you mean besides the kind of modernity itself and kids working on... Kids being assigned homework online, kids socializing online. I mean, adolescents are desperate for sleep. They're so hungry for it, and modern high schools and middle schools have them waking up preposterously early when their circadian rhythms are pitched forward. We've got a substantial sandwich generation that's taking care of young kids and their elderly parents. That's going to conspire against it. These are all immutable things. Also, there are elevated levels of anxiety now in our world, and anxiety itself is a huge source of... Or can be a source of sleeplessness, certainly can make one prone. So I mean, those are additional examples I suppose. Taylor Wilson: Let's talk through your story a bit here. When did you first realize that you had an issue with sleep? And walk us through your experience with insomnia. Jennifer Senior: It was 25 years ago and it was a very mysterious onset. I cannot tell you what brought it on to this day. It is a mystery. I had this extremely well-regulated kind of circadian clock. I fell asleep every night at 1:00. I woke up every day at 9:00. I lost my alarm clock. I still woke up at those times. I didn't have to buy a new alarm clock until I had an early flight one day, and yet sometime very close to my 29th birthday when virtually no circumstances in my life had changed one iota, I had a bad night, fell asleep at like 5:00. Thought nothing of it until they became more regular, and then I started doing all-nighters involuntarily, and I felt like I'd been poisoned. And to this day, I don't know what happened, but once that happens, the whole cycle starts to happen, then people suddenly become very afraid of not falling asleep and whatever kicked it off whether it's mysterious or known becomes irrelevant because then what you do is you start getting very agitated and going, oh my God, I'm not sleeping. Oh my God, I'm still not sleeping. Now it's 3:00 in the morning. Now it's 4:00 in the morning. Now it's 5:00 in the morning. Oh my God, I have one more hour, et cetera. Taylor Wilson: Well, you did write in the piece about the many different recommendations that she tried to solve your own sleep issues. What were some of them, Jennifer, and did any of them help? Jennifer Senior: Oh God, I tried all the things. This is before I sought real professional help, but I did all the things. I would took Tylenol PM, which did not work. I did acupuncture, which were lovely, but did not work. I listened to a meditation tape that a friend gave me, did not work. I listened to another one that was for sleep only that did not work. I ran. I always was a runner, but I ran extra, did not work. Gosh, changed my diet. I don't remember. I did all sorts of things. I tried different supplements, Valerian root, all these things. Melatonin, nothing, nothing. Taylor Wilson: You wrote in depth about one therapy that was recommended to you, and that was CBTI. That's cognitive based therapy for insomnia. Jennifer, first, what is this? And second, did you find any success by using this? Jennifer Senior: So cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, as you said, is the gold standard for treating insomnia. It's portable. You can take it with you. It's not like if you leave your sleep meds at home. The main tent pole of it, which is sleep restriction, which I'll get to in a minute, is very hard to do. I found it murder, the kind of easier parts, although they're still in a funny way, kind of paradoxical, are you have to change your thinking around this is the cognitive piece around sleeping and insomnia. You have to decide, okay, I'm not sleeping. So what? Now, this is kind of funny because there's this din surrounding us that says, oh my God, you're not sleeping. You're going to die of a heart attack. You're going to die of an immune disease. You're going to get cancer. All these things, right? You have to set that all aside and decide one more night's sleep that I can't sleep. So what? Right. That's one thing. You have to change your behaviors, deciding that you are going to consistently go to bed at the same time, wake up at the same time, all that, and not use your bed for anything other than just for sleeping and sex. The hard part and the most powerful part that I found it brutal was the part that said you have to restrict your sleep. If you had only five hours of sleep, but you're in bed for nine hours, you have to choose a wake-up time. Let's say it's 7:00 and then you have to go to bed five hours earlier, 2:00 to s7:00. That's all you can give yourself, and you cannot stop with that schedule until you've slept for the majority of those hours. That's very hard for a sleepless person. And then once you've succeeded, all you get to add on is 15 more minutes of sleep, and then you have to sleep the majority of those hours for three nights running. This is always for three nights running, and the idea is to build up a enough sleep pressure to regularize yourself. You basically capitulate to exhaustion and you start to develop a rhythm. I couldn't stick with it. I was so kind of stupid and depressed with sleeplessness by the time I started it that it probably was impractical and I refused to take drugs to help me fall asleep at the exact right hour, which many clinics recommend. If you're going to go to bed and sleep from 2:00 to 7:00, take something at 1:30 so that you fall asleep at two. But I was afraid of being dependent on drugs, and you can really wean yourself if you do it for a limited amount of time. You can wean yourself anytime really, if you're shrewd about it and if you taper. But I think that I would tell people to try it and to try it sooner rather than later, and to be unafraid of doing it in combination with drugs so that the schedule worked. Taylor Wilson: Well, I am happy you brought up drugs. I did want to bring that up just in terms of what experts are saying about their impact. Even just drugs and alcohol kind of writ large, but sleeping pills specifically. What did you find in researching this in terms of drugs and alcohol? Jennifer Senior: Well, there's a real stigma taking sleep medication, and I'm frankly a little sick of it. I'm not sure why this is so very stigmatized. Like, oh, they're drug addict. They're hooked on sleeping pills. It's framed as addiction, and no one says that someone is addicted to their Ozempic, even though a lifestyle change could perhaps obviate the need. No one says that they are addicted... Oh, that person is totally addicted to their blood pressure medication, even though maybe a change in lifestyle would help change that. Or that they're addicted to their statins, So I sort of bristle. And those who prescribe these medicines say like, look, if the benefit outweighs the risk and they're used properly, sometimes the real side effect is just being dependent on these drugs, and there's a difference between dependence and addiction. A surprisingly small number of people who take these drugs regularly, like benzodiazepines, like Ativan and Ambien and Klonopin, all these things, a surprisingly small number, like 7% increase their doses if they take it every night. So that's very small. However, there are cognitive decrements over time... Or not decrements. It can interfere with your memory and it can increase your odds of falling as you get older. And those are, to me, the real persuasive reasons to get off. Taylor Wilson: I want to back up a minute here to talk about something many may not be aware of, and that's that historically, at least in some eras, people used to sleep in two blocks. What do you know about this? How did this function and really why did this kind of sleep pattern work for some folks? Jennifer Senior: Well, it was sort of, I think, natural. It seemed that this is, and it has not been proven everywhere, but there's plenty of both historical evidence and also some in a lab by this wonderful guy named Tom Ware that shows that if you sort of just put someone in a room, 14 hours of darkness, what will happen is that their sleep will naturally split into two. They'll sleep for a phase, wake up for a phase, and then sleep for a phase again. And historically, there's all sorts of evidence that people would sleep for a phase, get up and read for a while, do some quiet things, do light tasks, maybe sing, maybe have sex, and then go back to bed. So there seemed to be two phases, and this was much easier to do when midnight was actually midnight. You were going bed when the sun had set, or just after were you were tethered to the rhythms of the earth as opposed to a wired electricity run world. Taylor Wilson: What is something you wish you knew when you first started on this journey? Jennifer Senior: To get on it earlier and to not be as afraid... Cognitive behavioral therapy is, I think, often done in conjunction with taking something like Klonopin or Ativan or Ambien, and I was so petrified of becoming hooked on them that I didn't... I refused to take them and I couldn't get my sleep to contract as a result of it. My body was so completely dysregulated and confused about it was so all over the place that I really needed something to regularize it and stabilize it, and I flipped out, and I think if anybody goes and tries CBT, I and their practitioner says to them, and I'm going to have to be on their recommendation, do this in concert with a drug, because you really need it. Don't sit there and freak out and think that you can't or shouldn't, because it happens a lot and people freak out a lot. Taylor Wilson: All right, Jennifer Senior, thank you so much for coming on the Excerpt. Jennifer Senior: Thank you so much for having me. Taylor Wilson: Thanks to our senior producers, Shannon Rae Green and Kaylee Monahan for their production assistance. Our executive producer is Laura Beatty. Let us know what you think of this episode by sending a note to podcasts@ Thanks for listening. I'm Taylor Wilson. I'll be back tomorrow morning with another episode of USA TODAY's the Excerpt.
USA Today
2 days ago
- USA Today
Family of boy who died from brain-eating amoeba speaks out: 'Unimaginable'
The family of a 12-year-old boy from South Carolina is grieving after he died from a brain-eating amoeba, according to a statement from their lawyer. Jaysen Carr died on July 18 after developing an infection from the brain-eating amoeba Naegleria fowleri, the statement shared by Bailey Law Firm said. The South Carolina Department of Public Health confirmed in a statement to USA TODAY on July 23 that a person died after being exposed to the amoeba earlier in July. Prisma Health Children's Hospital Midlands confirmed on July 22 that the person was treated at the facility but did not publicly identify the person. "The Carr family is incredibly grateful for the outpouring of love from the community and for the dedicated care provided by the doctors and nurses at Prisma Health Children's Hospital in the Midlands," the statement said. Brain-eating amoeba victim was 'bright and beloved' middle schooler The statement from the Carr family's lawyer said Jaysen was a "bright and beloved" middle school student. "His loss is unimaginable, and our hearts are with his family as they grieve their son and search for answers," the statement said. The legal team said it will "stand beside this family not only to seek the truth, but to help ensure no other family endures a loss like this." "We ask that you keep the Carrs in your thoughts and prayers and respect their privacy as they prepare to lay Jaysen to rest," Bailey Law Firm's statement said. Brain-eating amoeba: Person dies from Naegleria fowleri in South Carolina, officials say Family says boy was infected with brain-eating amoeba at SC lake The family's statement also said Jaysen Carr developed the infection after swimming at Lake Murray outside Columbia. The SCDPH said it also believed the exposure occurred at the lake. "We cannot be completely certain as this organism occurs naturally and is present in many warm water lakes, rivers and streams," the agency said. What is Naegleria fowleri? Why is it known as a brain-eating amoeba? Naegleria fowleri is a type of amoeba that can cause a rare but nearly always fatal brain infection. It thrives in warm freshwater lakes, rivers and hot springs, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The amoeba is often referred to as brain-eating because it can cause an infection called primary amebic meningoencephalitis (PAM) that destroys brain tissue. Most people who have been in bodies of waters have been exposed to the amoeba, but contact alone is not harmful, Dr. Anna Kathryn Burch, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Prisma Health Children's Hospital Midlands, said during a news conference on July 22. "Where it can cause an issue is if forceful water gets up the nose and is able to cross from the nose into the brain," Burch said, adding that a PAM infection causes the brain to swell. To protect against a possible infection, the CDC recommends holding or wearing a nose clip when jumping into fresh water, keeping the head above water in hot springs and using distilled or boiled tap water when rinsing sinuses. Melina Khan is a national trending reporter for USA TODAY. She can be reached at
