A word of warning to parents of adolescents, from the nation’s poison centers: \u00a0Yes, you’ve secured your medicine chest and your liquor cabinet, but a new thrill-seeking activity among teens might make you consider locking away the cinnamon shaker as well.<\/p>\n
\u00a0In the first three months of 2012, the nation’s poison centers have had 139 calls—close to three times as many as were received in all of 2011—seeking help and information about the intentional misuse of cinnamon. \u00a0At least 122 of these calls arose from something called the “cinnamon challenge”—a game growing in popularity among teens in which a child is dared to swallow a spoonful of ground or powdered cinnamon without drinking any water.<\/p>\n
\u00a0As cinnamon coats and dries the mouth and throat, coughing, gagging, vomiting and inhaling of cinnamon ensures, leading to throat irritation, breathing difficulties and risk of pneumonia, says Dr. Alvin C. Bronstein, medical and managing director of Rocky\u00a0Mountain Poison and Drug Center.\u00a0\u00a0 For teens who suffer from asthma, the “cinnamon challenge” can be particularly risky, because they can develop shortness of breath.<\/p>\n
\u00a0Of the 139 calls received so far this year by poison control centers, 30 required medical evaluation.\u00a0 What started kids abusing the contents of the kitchen’s little bear shaker? \u00a0Look no further than the internet: \u00a0Videos posted there are helping spread word of the cinnamon challenge.<\/p>\n
\u00a0“We urge parents and caregivers to talk to their teens about the cinnamon challenge, explaining to their teens that what may seem like a silly game can have serious health consequences,” said Bronstein.<\/p>\n
\u00a0The latest warning comes out of the American Association of Poison Control Centers’ National Poison Data System, which collects data on some 2 million calls made to poison control lines across the country each year, providing early warning of dangerous trends.<\/p>\n
\u00a0Source:\u00a0 ErieTimes News \u00a0– USA<\/span>\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a02nd<\/sup> April 2012<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A word of warning to parents of adolescents, from the nation’s poison centers: \u00a0Yes, you’ve secured your medicine chest and your liquor cabinet, but a new thrill-seeking activity among teens might make you consider locking away the cinnamon shaker as well. \u00a0In the first three months of 2012, the nation’s poison centers have had 139 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-parents"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8205\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}