The latest health-endangering fad on viral social media platform TikTok recommends adding household cleaner borax to bath water, which experts say could cause stomach irritation and blue-green vomit or diarrhoea if swallowed.
The powdery substance is found in laundry detergent and sold on its own as a cleaning product. Boric acid, a different formulation of the same compound – boron – is also used to kill ants and cockroaches, reports NBC News.
Borax has been banned in US food products, but some people on TikTok have falsely suggested that adding a pinch of it to their water could reduce inflammation and help with joint pain, or that soaking in borax in the bathtub could “detoxify” the body.
Several influencers with hundreds of thousands of followers on TikTok recommended borax in videos that have since been taken down.
Dr Kelly Johnson-Arbor, a toxicology physician and co-medical director at the National Capital Poison Centre, who routinely writes articles for the centre’s website that correct the record about dangerous health fads, said there was absolutely nothing to support the use of borax in humans for inflammation or reduction of oxidative stress.
“Over time, it can also cause anaemia and seizures,” she said, and soaking in the substance could cause rashes that make the skin appear as bright pink as a boiled lobster and start to fall off.
Health misinformation continues to proliferate on TikTok, and last month Johnson-Arbor wrote an article warning about berberine, a dietary supplement for weight loss that some on TikTok dubbed “nature’s Ozempic”, but which is known to cause gastrointestinal problems.
Similarly, some social media hype about the weight-gain supplement apetamin has suggested it can make people “slim-thick”, meaning it can give people a thin waist and large behind.
But it contains an antihistamine, and the US Food and Drug Administration has warned that apetamin is illegally imported and may cause dizziness, sleepiness, irregular heartbeat and liver injury.
Then there’s the trend of inhaling smelling salts – popularised on TikTok by a company called Nose Slap – which can be poisonous when done incorrectly or over long periods, and the PRIME energy drink, the caffeine content of which is equivalent to roughly six Coca-Cola cans.
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
TikTok challenge lands dozens of US students in hospital
TikTok bans videos promoting sunburn after backlash about cancer
TikTok turns diabetes drug into popular diet pill
Experts unpack berberine, the latest social media slimming trend