A woman claimed she was sent to hospital with a burned esophagus after following a wellness influencer's digestive health prescription.
In a viral TikTok video, a woman warned about the dangers of following health and wellness advice from social media influencers. TikTok user @lutinii took to the platform in April to share her disastrous results after trying an influencer's “holistic” recipe to help with digestion.
“You better be careful listening to those health and wellness influencers, otherwise you might end up in the hospital like I did,” he began his viral video, which has been viewed more than two million times.
The woman explained that about six years ago she began following a “well-known” health and wellness creator on social media. The anonymous influencer allegedly shared content about “healing her body from a chronic illness,” something the TikToker could relate to.
“It was one day that I came across one of his videos, which talked about how you can help your digestion by covering an orange with cinnamon and cayenne pepper and eating it, peel and all,” he said. “It was not pleasant to go down and I thought it was in the name of health. I thought I was doing the right thing for my body and I would thank myself later. Mistaken.”
She revealed that she “ended up so sick” from eating the influencer's digestive health recipe that she had to go to the hospital. She informed the doctor that she had eaten an orange coated in cinnamon and cayenne, to which he responded, “Why would you do that?”
“Do you know what my answer was?” the woman asked the camera. “'I saw someone do it online.' As soon as she left my mouth I thought: I deserve this. This is what I get.”
The doctor suggested that he might have burned his esophagus from eating orange with cinnamon and cayenne, and for several months afterward he visited several specialists to treat his esophagus.
“I had an endoscopy and it turned out that I actually burned my esophagus,” he said.
While the incident occurred years ago, the TikToker said she was asked to post about her hospital experience after noticing that the wellness influencer had recently reposted the same digestive health recipe on her social media page.
“It just bothers me because now there are hundreds of thousands of people looking for information on it,” the woman said. “It's dangerous to recommend something to someone and say, 'This is the cure for your digestion problem,' but it's even more dangerous to believe everything you see.”
“While I think being aware is the responsibility of an influencer and a content creator, I think we have even more of a responsibility to discern and take everything you see with a grain of salt,” he added. “This is the last time I will listen to a health and wellness influencer.”
In her caption, the TikToker shared the important reminder that “no body is the same and there is no one size fits all.”
Although the woman did not name the health and wellness influencer in her video, it didn't take long for the internet to suggest that the creator of the content was Lilsipper, a popular influencer with over a million followers on Instagram. Lilsipper, also known as Bethany, has gained a large online following for her recipes and tricks that focus on improving digestive health.
In May 2022, he shared a video of a recipe that looked very similar to the one that allegedly burned the TikToker's esophagus. The recipe, which featured a navel orange coated with cayenne pepper and cinnamon, claimed to relieve constipation “in about five minutes.” She shared a similar video with the same recipe again in December 2023.
The comments section had thousands of messages from users referencing @lutinii's video about her hospital experience. “Coming from the video of the person who was hospitalized,” one person wrote, while another user said, “Who else ended up here after seeing the girl who was sent to the ER for trying?”
Despite the TikToker's negative experience, cayenne pepper is known to cause some relief for digestion problems by increasing “gastric juices and enzyme production in the stomach, which helps us break down food” and ” promote a healthy microbiome,” according to the Cleveland Clinic.
Navel oranges can also help with digestion because they contain about three grams of fiber, which helps the digestive system process food and maintain regular bowel movements. Meanwhile, cinnamon has long been used as a method of supporting digestive health.
The independent has contacted Lilsipper and @lutinii for comment.
