A shocking recent study has found a 3rd of childhood burns are brought on by scald injuries from cooking quick noodles.

The study, published within the journal Burns, was led by researchers on the University of Chicago. Within the study, researchers analyzed data from all pediatric patients, who were admitted with burn injuries on account of hot liquids between 2010 and 2020 on the university’s burn center.

“Anecdotally, it felt like every other child we were consulted on for a burn was injured by quick noodles, so we desired to dive into the info to see what the trend really was,” senior creator Sebastian Vrouwe, assistant professor of surgery on the University of Chicago Medicine, said, as per ABC7.

Following an evaluation of 790 cases of childhood scald injuries, it was found 31% were brought on by quick noodles.

“Our hope is to develop the groundwork for future burn prevention programming, as essentially all childhood burns are ultimately preventable,” Vrouwe said.

Vrouwe and his team were shocked by the undeniable fact that quick noodles were such a major reason behind childhood burns.

“We were surprised by the sheer magnitude of the issue, which confirmed that focused effort and awareness on some of these burns could have a major impact within the communities that our burn center serves,” Vrouwe noted.

In response to the study, the patients who were Black and from ZIP codes with a lower average childhood opportunity index rating had a better likelihood of getting quick noodles burns.

Fast noodles being a low-cost meal option often is the reason for this trend, researchers posit. As a consequence, “global efforts to deal with childhood poverty would very likely have positive secondary effects on burn prevention,” researchers wrote.

The common age of youngsters with burns from quick noodles was also barely greater than those with other burn injuries, at 5.4 years. The researchers called it “the age at which children are in a position to attempt to arrange quick noodles, but not sufficiently old to accomplish that safely.” Furthermore, these children were also more prone to be without adult supervision on the time of the injury.

“Direct caregiver supervision is one essential step in burn prevention,” Vrouwe said. “The quantity of warmth contained in these noodles can easily cause second and third-degree burns in anyone, but young children are particularly vulnerable on account of their relatively smaller bodies and thinner skin.”

One other skin response called margarita burn was within the news when an 8-year-old boy learned the hard way that even a straightforward gesture of touching limes could lead on to painful burns. 

A margarita burn or phytophotodermatitis is a skin condition from contact with light-sensitizing botanical substances in plants. When the substance is exposed to ultraviolet radiation, it forms a skin irritant that causes a rash resulting in subsequent blisters, as per Medscape.