Often during the holidays, there is a higher number of people with esophageal food bolus impaction reporting to emergency departments. In other words, during the elaborate meals that are consumed in a relatively short time, people can get a piece of food stuck in their throat. In complete blockages, not even the saliva of the patient can be swallowed. This causes all the more discomfort, especially when the saliva enters the esophagus.
The current treatment to this issue is emergent endoscopic removal, which is uncomfortable and presents a high workload for the healthcare professionals. This underlines the need for a less invasive and drug-based treatment. A hack that you might have heard of is to drink cola. The exact mechanism is unknown, but it is thought to be related to the carbon dioxide that is present in cola.
Researchers of the Amsterdam UMC researchers, including AGEM principal investigator Arjen Bredenoord, set out to discover whether cola really works, as it could offer a low cost and low effort solution to the problem. They set up a randomized controlled trial, which ran for two and a half years and included 51 patients.
Unfortunately, no significant difference was found between the patients that were instructed to drink cola and the patients that did not drink cola, in both cases a 61% improvement of the compaction was found. However, no adverse effects were found either, meaning this study could be repeated on a bigger scale. In conclusion, there is no danger in trying to resolve food stuck in your throat with cola, but for now it does not seem to be the magical solution we need.
Read the original paper on the BMJ website or read more on the National Post website.