Swallow with care! AIIMS issues advisory on how to eat momos

Hyderabad: The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) has issued a warning on chewing momos properly instead of swallowing them, after a 50-year-old man choked on the food item and died. Medical experts issued a ‘swallow with care’ warning for momos, a popular street food item that is generally filled with juicy meat or […]

Hyderabad: The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) has issued a warning on chewing momos properly instead of swallowing them, after a 50-year-old man choked on the food item and died.

Medical experts issued a ‘swallow with care’ warning for momos, a popular street food item that is generally filled with juicy meat or veggies. They are relished with sauces in steamed or fried form.

According to reports, a Delhi man, who was said to be drunk at the time, was brought dead to AIIMS after he suddenly collapsed to the ground while eating momos at a roadside stall. A momo was allegedly found stuck at the opening of the man’s windpipe.

The cause of death was neurogenic cardiac arrest due to choking of momos which were found at the laryngeal inlet.

According to AIIMS, choking is a condition where there is an obstruction in the airway at any place between the pharynx and bifurcation of the trachea. The choking is caused by an internal and external blockage. A corpus alienum or a foreign body is any object originating from outside the body. If this is too large to gain access into the trachea, then it will lodge in the posterior hypopharynx, resulting in blockage of the respiratory tract.

Sudden unexpected deaths due to blockage of the airway by a large bolus of food are not very common. The incidence of asphyxia by food is found to cause 0.66 fatalities per 1,00,000 of the general population every year.