Paralysis outbreak in Europe linked to ‘stomach Botox’ procedure

Two pri­vate hos­pi­tals in Turkey have detect­ed out­breaks of bot­u­lism in which patients under­went med­ical inter­ven­tions aimed at weight loss.

A total of 67 cas­es of bot­u­lism have been report­ed so far, main­ly in Turkey, 12 in Ger­many, 1 in Aus­tria and 1 in Switzer­land, accord­ing to the Euro­pean Cen­ter for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion (ECDC).

No deaths have been report­ed yet, but some of the more seri­ous cas­es have been admit­ted to inten­sive care units.

Bot­u­lism is an incur­able dis­ease caused by the bac­teri­um Clostrid­i­um bot­u­linum, which usu­al­ly grows from spores in an oxy­gen-poor envi­ron­ment, caus­ing it to swell like the can of beans in the bot­tom of the pantry you’ve been avoid­ing since last summer.

In mild cas­es, blurred vision, dou­ble vision, slurred speech, nau­sea, and diar­rhea may occur. In more severe poi­son­ing, breath­ing is impaired and there is a 5–10% chance of death.

But in recent years, sci­en­tists have dis­cov­ered ways to phar­ma­co­log­i­cal­ly har­ness the nerve-block­ing tox­ins pro­duced by these tiny microbes.

By care­ful­ly admin­is­ter­ing this neu­ro­tox­in and inject­ing it into spe­cif­ic areas of the body, trained med­ical pro­fes­sion­als have found it a prac­ti­cal method to deac­ti­vate spe­cif­ic mus­cles that cause pain and cos­met­ic problems.

Botox is often used in cos­met­ic surgery to pre­vent wrin­kles in the skin, but it also has a vari­ety of oth­er uses, such as reliev­ing chron­ic migraines and pre­vent­ing exces­sive sweat­ing, such as in the armpits.

Fol­low­ing promis­ing results in ani­mal stud­ies in the ear­ly 2000s, endo­scop­ic injec­tion of bot­u­linum tox­in A (BTX‑A) into the stom­ach wall has become a means of slow­ing diges­tion and keep­ing sati­ety longer.

A grow­ing num­ber of clin­ics around the world offer this treat­ment, called “stom­ach botox” or “stom­ach botox”, and while it appears to be a rel­a­tive­ly safe option for now, its long-term effects as a weight loss aid are uncer­tain. have doubts.

Of course, absolute safe­ty can­not be guar­an­teed when it comes to Botox, one of the world’s most dan­ger­ous poi­sons. BTX‑A has a lethal dose of 1 nanogram per kilo­gram of body weight, leav­ing lit­tle room for cal­cu­la­tion of a safe and effec­tive dose.