Six people swallowed LEGO and showed up in their own sciences

Here are some good news for worried parents whose little children have ingested a LEGO (or two). A new study by pediatric researchers concluded that the toy should reappear in poo in a few days. They know this because their test subjects voluntarily swallowed LEGO figurines and monitored how long it took to recover them.

Yes, this is a real scientific work, published in reputation Journal of Pediatrics and Child Health with the title "Everything is great: Do not forget the LEGO". It's the same group of pediatricians behind the popular blog Do not forget the bubbles. "I finally answered the burning question: how long does a LEGO head go through?" Co-founder of DFTB and co-author of paper Tessa Davis wrote on Twitter. "This is the devotion to pediatrics, but it deserved to advance pediatric emergency science and medical assistance."

We think, but this really addresses a valid concern. As Bruce Y. Lee, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg Public Health School, Forbes, little children love to swallow things, especially coins. There have been previous studies examining the passage of coins through the digestive tract, especially a 1971 paper that found most coins went through harmlessness within three to six days.

But no one had looked closely at the second most commonly swallowed object: small toy pieces. And the heads of LEGO figurines are especially tempting for the curious gourmet child.

How did you find even six adults (three men and three women) who want to swallow LEGO components? Davis et al. have recruited their subjects from the online community of professionals in pediatric hospitals. They examined anyone with previous gastrointestinal surgery, problems with swallowing objects, or a "stomach aversion."

Each subject held a "stool journal" recording the bowel movements before and after the LEGO heads were swallowed. They evaluated the frequency and freedom of the chair on the basis of the research team 'Sitting and Transition Hardness (SHAT)'. (Who says the pediatricians do not have a sense of humor?) After swallowing the toys, they spent the next three days passing through their own poo to determine when the LEGO head recurred. The number of days he had to go through and recovered was called Time and Retrieved (FART).

A bad driver never took the LEGO head at all.

Five of the six subjects had FART scores ranging from 1.14 days to 3.04 days for an average of 1.71 days (approximately 41 hours). And a poor friend has never recovered LEGO's head. We now I know this subject is co-author of the paper and pediatrician consultant Damien Roland, who CBC said he continued to look for his own poo for two weeks, hoping the toy piece would reappear without any results. Perhaps a little more in the diet would help?

As Lee points out, this is a small study, focusing on adults rather than small children. SHAT and FART scores may vary more among the general population. This was not a blind study because the authors felt it would be too much to ask partners or colleagues to study through poo on their behalf. And other small parts of toys of different shapes could take shorter or more times to pass through the body.

"A toy object passes quickly through adult subjects without complications," concludes, adding an important warning: "parents should be advised not to look for the object in the chairs because it is difficult to find." But also can not swallow those heads of LEGO figurines, first of all, can not?

TWO: Journal of Pediatrics and Child Health, 2018. 10.1111 / jpc.14309 (About DOI).