Health & Medicine

Over Eating Flamin' Hot Cheetos and Spicy Snacks Leads to Abdomen Inflammation, Gastritis and Ulcers

Nupur Jha
First Posted: Nov 18, 2013 09:42 AM EST

Medics warn that consuming too much of spicy chips such as Flamin' Hot Cheetos can lead to gastritis, abdomen inflammation and other health problems in the future.

Various schools have banned the sales of Cheetos in their campus to promote nutritional food products among children, but many of them still carry a pack of Cheetos from their homes.

Andrew Medina, 12, consumed about 20 to 30 packs of Cheetos and other spicy snacks over a month's time and started experiencing burning sensation on his left and pain in his abdomen. He asked his mother to take him to a doctor.

"Like if you have a bruise or something. It really hurts a lot," Medina told KABC.

Medina said he would stop munching his favorite snack from now on but it would not be easy for him.

Pediatrics say that Flamin' Hot Cheetos and other spicy snacks are becoming a serious cause of concern for parents as many children are ending up in hospitals because of them. The presence of red food dye in the popular snack Cheetos turns the children's poop red and dark orange in color, which the parents presume to be blood.

"..you have to eat quite a bit of the red snack to see red in your stool. It may be a sign of another health risk -- over-eating," Dr. Kathleen Berchelmann from the St. Louis Children's Hospital told CBS News.

This addictive snack consists of ingredients such as fats and sodium which are present in high amounts.  They end up causing ailments such as inflammation, which adversely affects the stomach lining. Vomiting, burning, bloating and hiccups are some common symptoms of stomach inflammation.

"We have a population who loves to eat the hot spicy, not real foods, and they come in with these real complaints," said Dr. Martha Rivera, White Memorial Medical Center, KABC reported.

"It burns when it goes down, it burns when it comes out," said Rivera

Dr. Rivera has been seeing a number of children with problems such as gastritis and ulcers daily. The reason behind their ailment is nothing but these spicy junk snacks. She advised parents to give their children fruits such as apples instead of these spicy junk.

The Cheetos manufacturing company Frito-Lay defended itself saying "it is committed to responsible and ethical marketing practices, which includes not marketing our products to children ages 12 and under."

Over-eating these snacks will not only lead to abdominal pains and ulcers, it can also create health problems later in life such as heart ailments, high blood pressure and high levels of cholesterol.

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