Festive binging leads to cases of stomach-related ailments

As the festive season of Ganesh Chaturthi has begun, so has the binging on sweets and savouries at every household in the city.

Doctors from the city said as people are indulging in gheeladen, multi-coloured modaks and laddoos, the number of patients with stomach related complaints have also shot up in the past ten days.

“We usually see around 2 to 3 patients on a daily basis suffering from stomach related ailments like gastroenteritis, diarrhoea or jaundice,” said Dr Prashant Jawade, medical superintendent of Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation run civic hospital in Vashi.

“But with the festive season on, the numbers have spiralled up to around 10 to 12 cases now in the past one week,” Jawade added.

Dr Jawade added that there are two side effects of indulging during the festival season.

“One is since people eat more outside food they are bound to get bacterial infections and second, due to over-eating digestion issues are a major complaint. This is further going to aggravate with more festivals coming up.”

While Nerul-based general physician Dr Jayanta Pal said that people usually eat rich greasy food during this time, it results in acidity and gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) which is a kind of digestive disorder.

“I have been treating four to five patients daily at my clinic this week,” added Dr Pal.

“Along with excessive eating, there is also no guarantee of the quality of the material used for making sweets which mostly contain artificial toxic colors and synthetic flavours. This is the major reason behind the cause of these diseases,” he added.

Doctors also said another reason more people falling prey to stomach-related diseases is because of the intermittent rains. “The digestive system remains less immune during the rainy season and hence it is advisable to only eat quality and light home-made sweets and eatables,” said Dr Anuradha Ghorpade, Vashi based gastrointestinal specialist.