Caitlin Nelson and Travis Malouff lived on opposite sides of the country.

They were nearly two decades apart in age. They were likely very different in other ways — but their deaths have unexpectedly tied them together.

Nelson, a 20-year-old Sacred Heart University student from New Jersey, and Malouff, a 42-year-old Denver man, died on the same day after participating in eating competitions.

Nelson died following complications from choking during a pancake-eating contest at the University Commons, and Malouff died while participating in a doughnut-eating competition in Denver.

The fact that two such similar tragedies took place so close together has raised questions about the risks of competitive eating. Though experts said incidents like these are uncommon, there are dangers attached to these contests.

“Any time you exceed what is the usual pattern of eating we’ve developed over years of evolution, you’re going to run some sort of risks,” said Dr. Michael Werdmann, an emergency room physician at Bridgeport Hospital.

William Symons, a surgeon at Stamford Hospital, agreed.

“This isn’t a widespread, national thing that happens all the time, but it does happen,” he said.

A popular pursuit

Eating competitions take place all over the country, all year long, and involve consuming mass quantities of all sorts of foods, from chili to corn on the cob to shrimp cocktail.

Perhaps the most well-known competition is the Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest, which takes place every Fourth of July on Coney Island.

Major League Eating, the organization that oversees professional eating competitions, sponsors at least 80 such competitions annually. Many of these events are popular, and Major League Eating reports that the ESPN broadcast of the Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Contest generated a higher rating than any Major League Baseball telecast on that day.

But even the professional eating organization acknowledges the potential dangers of these contests, and posts a warning on its website declaring that “safety is the first consideration in any sport, and MLE insists that all sanctioned competitive eating matches take place in a controlled environment with proper safety measures in place.”

The statement said the organization “will not sanction or promote any events that do not adhere to proper safety regulations, and the league believes that speed eating is only suitable for those 18 years of age or older and only in a controlled environment with appropriate rules and with an emergency medical technician present.”

Short-term risks

Indeed, these events can take a dangerous turn, according to local experts. Choking is probably the most immediate health hazard of these competitions, because contestants typically pack food into their mouths at a high rate of speed. When that happens, there can be a lack of coordination between chewing and swallowing, Werdmann said.

“If you obstruct the airway, you can choke and you have only a matter of minutes (to clear the airway),” said Symons, also director of Stamford Health’s new hernia center.

Werdmann said a choking victim typically has four to six minutes to get help before a lack of oxygen starts to damage the brain.

Other short-term risks include the possibility of tearing the esophagus through stuffing in too much food, or eating so much that the competitor perforates his or her stomach. But the risks of these competitions don’t end once they’re over.

Long-lasting impacts

Though there has been little research on the long-term effects of competitive eating, an often-cited 2007 study out of the University of Pennsylvania showed evidence that the sport can transform the body for the worse.

Researchers compared the stomachs of a world-class speed-eating champion and a control subject during a speed-eating test to determine how competitive eaters are able to eat so much so fast. The study’s results suggested that speed eaters “expand the stomach to form an enormous flaccid sac capable of accommodating huge amounts of food. We speculate that professional speed eaters eventually may develop morbid obesity, profound gastroparesis, intractable nausea and vomiting, and even the need for a gastrectomy. Despite its growing popularity, competitive speed eating is a potentially self-destructive form of behavior.”