coca-cola

Woman hospitalized with pain and vomiting—diet soda cured her

bezoar, coca-cola, health, New England Journal of Medicine / 9u50fv / September 27, 2025

A 63-year-old woman showed up at the emergency department of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston with severe stomach pain, nausea, and vomiting.

She told doctors that for the past month she had developed severe nausea, non-bloody vomiting, and pain she described as a burning feeling that spread from her upper abdomen, through her right side, and around to her back. Nothing she did made it better.

The doctors started collecting her medical history, which was lengthy. The woman had Type 2 diabetes, Stage 2 chronic kidney disease, opioid use disorder, and gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), among other conditions. While she was taking many medications, she noted that for the past year she had also been taking semaglutide, a GLP-1 weight-loss drug, and had lost about 40 pounds (over 19 percent of her body weight).

In an interactive case report published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine, the doctors laid out how they figured out what was going on and treated it—with a surprisingly simple solution.

Possibilities

The doctors started doing lab tests and imaging, and they admitted her to the hospital. A computed tomography (CT) scan of her abdomen revealed bile-duct enlargement and a swollen stomach that seemed to be full of a semi-solid mass. Similarly, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) also picked up a mass in her stomach, one with mottling that doctors assumed were air bubbles. The imaging also found bile duct enlargement, which could be linked to her history of opioid use—or to a gastric bezoar.

Gastric bezoars are masses that form in the stomach. There are different kinds depending on what the masses are made of. The most common is a phytobezoar, which is made from clumped fruit and vegetable components, particularly non-digestible materials such as cellulose. A notable subtype of phytobezoar is the diospyrobezoar, which is formed from eating an excessive amount of persimmons. The fruit’s skin is brimming with tannins that form a glue-like substance when they hit gastric acid, aiding the formation of a mass that is notoriously hard and difficult to treat.

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Trump’s claims of a Coca-Cola agreement quickly go flat as nutritionists groan

The cloying praise for the still-unconfirmed switch that Coca-Cola has, in fact, not announced was doused with some cold reality from Coca-Cola. While continuing not to confirm the agreement, the soda maker seemed to respond to the “artificial” bit in Fox’s post, saying that HFCS is “just a sweetener made from corn. It’s safe; it has about the same number of calories per serving as table sugar and is metabolized in a similar way by your body.”

The beverage maker also said that the American Medical Association “confirmed that HFCS is no more likely to contribute to obesity than table sugar or other full-calorie sweeteners.”

A 2008 report from the AMA concluded that “Because the composition of HFCS and sucrose are so similar, particularly on absorption by the body, it appears unlikely that HFCS contributes more to obesity or other conditions than sucrose.” Though the medical association noted a lack of research directly comparing the sweeteners.

While political critics suggest that the fizzy Coke fuss is just a distraction from the president’s ongoing Epstein file scandal, health experts are shaking their heads.

Nutrition expert Marion Nestle, professor emeritus at New York University, told Stat News that the push for cane sugar, just like the push to remove artificial dyes from processed foods, was “nutritionally hilarious.” Whether Coke is sweetened with cane sugar or HFCS, it still contains the equivalent of about 10 teaspoons of sugar per 12-ounce can and poses risks for conditions such as Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. “It’s the kind of thing that makes nutritionists roll their eyes, because it doesn’t make any difference,” Nestle said.