Frozen honey pattern on TikTok has consultants involved. ‘That’s quite a lot of diarrhea’

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A new TikTok trend is making people freeze honey – and making some experts concerned.

Eating too much of the sweet stuff can cause diarrhea, stomach pain, and other complications, nutritionists and doctors told several news outlets this week.

Here’s what you should know about the trend and if it’s safe.

In the past few weeks, the TikTok social media platform has been flooded with videos showing people filling plastic bottles with honey and putting them in the freezer. Some users then press out the golden, now solidified substance and sink their teeth.

And people can’t get enough of the short clips. By Wednesday, tens of millions of people had viewed content with the hashtags #frozenhoney and #frozenhoneychallenge.

“I actually saw the videos a couple of times,” said Dr. Niket Sonpal, gastroenterologist and associate professor at Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine in New York, told Nexstar Media Group. “And when I saw it, my first thought was, ‘That’s a lot of sugar, that’s a lot of honey, and that’s a lot of diarrhea.'”

TikTok didn’t immediately respond to a request from McClatchy News on Thursday to comment on the trend. Some app users stated in their videos that they feel uncomfortable after trying frozen honey.

One concern is that in some videos, people are consuming so much of the sticky substance at once. Eating large quantities from the bottle can lead to gas, cramps and diarrhea, according to Shape magazine.

“Honey is great, but sweetening it in small amounts is really a healthy relationship with a food nutritionist at the Cleveland Clinic,” NBC News told NBC News.

Another concern is that around a third of people are fructose intolerant, which means their intestines have difficulty absorbing fructose. In these cases, ingesting too much honey can lead to diarrhea and discomfort, NBC News reported.

If the honey thickens, it can also be “brutal” on your mouth, which puts you at risk of broken teeth or tooth decay, according to Health and other media outlets.

Another thing that parents should be aware of is that children under the age of 1 should never eat honey due to the rare threat of botulism.

For adults, experts say, the bottom line is that if you don’t have diabetes, it should be okay to eat the frozen honey in small amounts.

Registered nutritionist Christy Harrison told Shape that she “doesn’t see any long-term side effects if you just eat it as a delicious dessert on a hot day and listen to your body to tell you when you’ve had enough” “.

Not so sweet: France warns of “aphrodisiacs honey”

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© 2021 The Charlotte Observer. Visit charlotteobserver.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

citation: The frozen honey trend on TikTok has experts worried. “That’s a lot of diarrhea” (2021, August 6), accessed on August 6, 2021 from https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-08-frozen-honey-trend-tiktok-experts.html

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