He suffered from coughing and shortness of breath, and the reason was a “metal mesh” in the esophagus!

Doctors in the Russian city of Vidnoye were able to perform a successful operation to remove a metal mesh from the esophagus of a man who had come to the hospital suffering from symptoms of cough and shortness of breath.

According to the Russian 360 TV channel, a 37-year-old man was admitted to the hospital in the city of Vidnoye due to complaints of coughing, difficulty breathing, and the feeling of a foreign body in the throat. During the examination, doctors discovered the presence of a metal mesh in his esophagus, and they performed an operation on him and removed the mesh from his body.

The doctors indicated that the man was unable to explain how the mesh reached his stomach. The diameter of the mesh was about two centimeters, and during the removal of this object there was a risk of causing damage to the wall of his esophagus.

For her part, Tatiana Shashkova, head of the clinical diagnostics department at the hospital where the man’s rescue operation was performed, said: “We decided to remove the foreign body from the man’s esophagus using forceps used to collect biological biopsies. The operation was performed under local anesthesia and took half an hour.”

Do sweeteners really make you fat?

A recent study claimed that drinks containing artificial sweeteners do not lead to weight gain and can even help you lose it.

Contrary to some previous research, scientists in the United Kingdom found that drinking two cans of artificially sweetened beverages, for a year, has no significant effect on body weight.

Participants in the diet drinks group lost an average of 7.5 kilograms, while those who stuck to water lost 6.1 kilograms.

However, scientists caution that this result was not statistically significant.

Scientists studied weight loss in overweight and obese people who drank low-calorie sweetened beverages, compared to people who drank water.

They recruited 496 participants between the ages of 18 and 65, with an average body mass index (BMI) of 31.

Only 262 people completed the full year-long study, which was funded by the American Beverage Association.

Half of them drank at least two 330 milliliters of water daily, while the other half drank artificially sweetened beverages.

Not only was there no weight gain in the diet drink group, they also showed an improvement in good cholesterol (HDL), which has been shown to reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke.

Those who followed the water diet lost the most weight at week 44, while those who drank sweetened beverages lost the most weight at week 26.

Both groups began to regain weight after this point, although the sweetener group gained the weight back more slowly than the water group.

The findings contradict recent research suggesting that artificial sweeteners, such as aspartame, lead to weight gain, as well as permanent health consequences such as diabetes and cancer.

In 2017, a review published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal analyzed 37 studies conducted on more than 400,000 adults over 10 years.

They concluded that artificial sweeteners did not help people lose weight, and suggested that those who consumed them regularly were more likely to gain weight than those who did not.

Sweeteners have also been associated with an increased risk of diabetes and heart disease.

Additionally, 2023 University of Minnesota research found that long-term exposure to artificially sweetened beverages, for more than 20 years, led to increased body fat.

However, previous studies have found the opposite to be true.

In 2016, a report published in the journal Obesity found that overweight and obese adults lost more weight when drinking artificially sweetened beverages than water.

The different conclusions between studies are said to be due to a number of factors. For example, studies that rely on patients providing an honest description of the drinks they have consumed are known to be unreliable, because participants do not always remember correctly.

It is also unclear whether people with a genetic predisposition to obesity are more likely to drink diet drinks because they are trying to lose weight.

In May, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued guidance stating that consumption of sweeteners “confers no long-term benefit in reducing body fat in adults or children.”

Artificial sweeteners have also come under severe criticism because the World Health Organization committee declared aspartame a probable carcinogen, meaning it can cause cancer.

However, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) stated that it "disagrees" with this assessment.

The results were published in the International Journal of Obesity.