kid dies after One Chip challenge

[IceWizard]

14-Year-Old Dies After Trying The Paqui ‘One Chip Challenge’










What could possibly go wrong after trying the Paqui One Chip Challenge? This is the challenge where
you are supposed to eat one tortilla chip dusted with two of the hottest peppers in the world—the
Carolina Reaper and the Naga Viper—and then try to go as long as possible without eating or drinking
anything to ease the anguish. Well, over the past year, there have already been reports of kids suffering
all sorts of bad effects and even being hospitalized after trying this challenge. And on September 1,
Harris Wolobah, a 14-year-old sophomore at Doherty Memorial High School in Massachusetts, tragically
died soon after partaking in this challenge.

Now, even though it hasn’t yet been clearly established that the One event led to Wolobah’s death, the
timing has got to make you wonder. In fact, the GoFundMe page set up by Wolobah’s family did say,
“On September 1, my aunt Lois’ youngest son, Harris, passed away unexpectedly at the age of 14 from
what we suspect to be complications due to the “one chip challenge” (autopsy pending).” Basically, that day,
Wolobah visited the school’s nurse’s office complaining about not feeling well and showed the nurse a
picture of the one thing that he had just consumed: one of the Paqui chips. That’s according to reporting
from Rebecca Carballo and Remy Tumin for the New York Times. Wolobah felt so ill that he ended up leaving
school early with his parents. After returning home, Wolobah’s condition continued to deteriorate to the point
where he stopped breathing, was rushed to the hospital, and eventually died.

Again, the cause of Wolobah’s death has yet to be firmly established, pending an autopsy. But there are already
plenty of videos on social media of people shaking, sweating profusely, gasping, begging for water, and otherwise
looking very, very uncomfortable after eating the very, very spicy chip. The Paqui website used to ask people to
see “How long can you last before you spiral out,” after eating the chip and then to post their hot takes on
social media. Although, such statements have since been removed from its website, searching for the hashtag
#onechipchallenge on TikTok will return scores of videos showing people trying this one chip that sells for $9.99
and then visibly suffering more than one type of agony. Such videos have already garnered over 2 billion views
on TikTok in total. So, the challenge is that this challenge seems to be continuing.










This is another situation where it’s important to listen to your body. If your body is reacting very badly to
something then that should be a hint that it is not good for you. Although spicy food is part of many different
cuisines around the world and in many cases won’t result in much more than a feeling of warmth and perhaps
some sweating, pretty much anything in excess is bad. The Carolina Reaper and the Naga Viper are not you
run-of-the-mill peppers that will lead to no more than a bit of a tingle.

These are seriously hot peppers.



The hot from such hot chili peppers does not mean that the peppers have actually been heated to a high
temperature. Rather what’s bringing the heat is a chemical compound called capsaicin found in such peppers.
This chemical can bind to TRPV1 pain receptors that line your mouth, tongue and various other parts of your
gastrointestinal tract, which, in turn, triggers that feeling of heat and pain.

Your body can then mistake this for being under extreme heat—even though your body temperature doesn’t
actually rise to that degree—and as a result do all kinds of things to try to cool down. This includes producing
lots of sweat and expanding blood vessels to allow more body heat to dissipate through the skin. That’s why
you can get that red, flushed appearance when eating spicy food. Your body may also essentially say,
“What is this? Get this out of here!” And since your body doesn’t have a great GPS in place to specifically
identify where the capsaicin is, it can try to expel the capsaicin in a rather disordered,
let’s-just-try-everything-everywhere way. This entails increasing the production of mucus, saliva, tear, and
other fluids throughout your body. That’s why very spicy food can make you tear up, drool, and have a runny nose.









The effects can progress down your GI tract as the capsaicin makes it way down there. The initial reactions
are typically in your mouth and throat, causing them to swell, perhaps even to the point where it gets difficult
to breathe. As the capsaicin moves from your mouth down through your esophagus, you can develop burning
sensations in your chest. Next after the esophagus comes the stomach, where even more reactions can occur.
Now, contrary to a popular belief, capsaicin won’t cause stomach ulcers, but it can lead to cramping and pain
in your stomach that can lead to nausea and vomiting. This can exacerbate the symptoms of already existing
stomach ulcers and other types of already present damage. The pain doesn’t necessarily end there. It can
literally go end to end. When the capsaicin goes through your intestines and out the other end, triggering
more TRPV1 pain receptors along the way, your bowel movements can be painful as well.

All of the above are real and not imagined reactions. For example, when your throat feels like it is swelling,
it can actually be swelling and closing off your airway. Similarly, vomiting can be very real with the
stomach acid going up through your esophagus causing damage along the way. You could see how such
reactions when taken more to the extreme could end up being life-threatening. This can especially be the
case if you have some underlying medical condition such as heart problem or a gastrointestinal problem
like inflammatory bowel disease, irritable bowel syndrome, stomach ulcers, gallbladder problems, or
gastroesophageal reflux disease.

Your first inclination when consuming spicy food might be to reach for some water and guzzle it. However,
water is not going to help clear away capsaicin, which is an oil-based substance. As the saying goes, oil
and water do not mix. In fact, water may make things worse by spreading the capsaicin further. So, instead
of dealing with “heat” in only part of your mouth, water can spread the heat to all of your mouth and throat.
A better solution is consume substances such as milk and bread, which can basically keep the capsaicin from
binding the receptors.

Of course, another way to prevent the effects of spicy food is to not consume the food in the first place. Sure,
there is evidence that eating spicy foods may be associated with positive health benefits such as lower cholesterol,
weight loss via decreased appetite and increased metabolism, reduced acid production in the stomach,
decreased pain from chronic conditions, improvement in skin conditions like atopic dermatitis and psoriasis
and even cancer prevention. However, this doesn’t necessarily apply to very, very spicy things. And as
indicated earlier, there are real risks of consuming something that is very, very spicy.

This One Chip Challenge is yet another reminder that just because someone challenges you to do something
doesn’t necessarily mean that it is safe to do. There’s very little to gain from completing such a challenge
except for maybe the entertainment of others. At the same time, while many people can get through a challenge
without permanent damage, there can be the risk of more serious problems—really serious problems.




Excerpt From Wiki

The crossbreed is between a "really nastily hot" La Soufriere pepper from
Saint Vincent and a Naga pepper from Pakistan, and was named "Reaper"
due to the shape of its tail. It has been described as having a fruity taste,
with the initial bite being sweet and then immediately turning to "molten lava".
The sensory heat or pungency detected when eating a Carolina Reaper derives
from the density of capsaicinoids, particularly capsaicin, which relates directly
to the intensity of chili pepper heat and Scoville Heat Units (SHU).

The pepper was bred in a greenhouse in Rock Hill, South Carolina, by Ed Currie,
proprietor of the Puckerbutt Pepper Company in Fort Mill. It was certified as the
world's hottest chili pepper by Guinness World Records on August 11, 2017, surpassing
the previous record set by the Trinidad Scorpion "Butch T". The official Guinness World Record
heat level was 1,641,183 SHU in 2017, according to tests conducted by Winthrop University
in South Carolina. The figure is an average for the tested batch; the hottest individual pepper
was measured at 2.2 million SHU.

In May 2017, breeder Mike Smith of St Asaph, Wales, claimed to have surpassed the Carolina Reaper
with his Dragon's Breath pepper, developed by Smith alongside Nottingham Trent University
and reported to be 2.4 million SHUs; Smith applied to Guinness World Records for confirmation.
Four months later, however, Currie claimed to have bred a stronger pepper known as
Pepper X with 3.18 million SHUs.