Intentional Poisoning – by Salt

Intentional poisoning – by salt. This is Dr. Steven Andrew Davis, Speaking of Health. It may be surreptitious, subtle, bizarre, or unthinkable, but it’s poisoning nonetheless. The medical literature contains a host of articles documenting episodes of children being poisoned intentionally, usually by their own mother.

All kinds of kitchen or bathroom products, grooming products, or foodstuffs can be involved. But one of the simplest and most insidious is common table salt. Loading up someone on salt can produce hypernatremia – meaning too much sodium chloride in the bloodstream. In a report published in the Archives of Diseases of Childhood, researchers tracked a dozen cases of intentional poisoning by salt. As little as two teaspoonfuls of table salt can raise the serum sodium concentration of a 6 month old infant well above normal. And now we get into potentially dangerous complications. High concentrations of salt in the bloodstream can harm the kidneys, liver, nervous system and other organs. In this particular series of 12 patients, 2 of them died from the effects of hypernatremia.

Doctors can have a hard time figuring out why such infants are hypernatremic, especially since the perpetrator may be in the hospital with the child and continuing to secretly feed him or her salt. Fortunately, once the source of excess salt is removed or confessed, the rest of these children return to normal, physically, while child custody officials figure out how to safeguard his or her future. For a copy of this script, access our web site, speakingofhealth.com. Speaking of Health, I’m Dr. Steven Andrew Davis, for CBS News.