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Man dies from eating more than a bag of liquorice a day

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Man dies from eating more than a bag of liquorice a day

#91

Post by ponker »

umvi wrote: post #78
Wistar wrote: post #70

Strong black licorice, "lakrids," abounds in Denmark. My brother visited me when I was living there and ate a pound or so of little, tobacco-pipe shaped licorice in an afternoon. He got profoundly ill with a racing heartbeat, lightheaded, dizzy and nauseous. I almost took him to the hospital but he refused. It took a couple of days before he felt good enough to get out of the apartment. Sometime after, I mentioned th…

You'd think the package would have a warning on it?

Dutch people don’t need a warning to stop them from eating a pound of licorice in a sitting. Wanton excess as a way of life is culturally American.

Re: Man dies from eating more than a bag of liquorice a day

#92

Post by 01100011 »

starkred wrote: post #41

I was surprised to see how clearly the FDA recommends against black licorice consumption. https://www.fda.gov/consumers/consumer-updates/black-licoric... > If you’re 40 or older, eating 2 ounces of black licorice a day for at least two weeks could land you in the hospital with an irregular heart rhythm or arrhythmia. I love black licorice but as far as I'm concerned that's enough of a reason to do without. Just becau…

It also appears to lower your testosterone: https://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/26/10/2962.1

I love licorice in all its forms but gave it up years ago. I always felt weird after drinking a cup of licorice tea.

Re: Man dies from eating more than a bag of liquorice a day

#93

Post by ThePadawan »

legitster wrote: post #35

> "We are told that this patient has a poor diet and eats a lot of candy. Could his illness be related to candy consumption?" Dr Elazer R Edelman said. > The patient had also recently changed the type of sweets he was eating. A few weeks before his death, he switched from red fruit-flavoured twists to another type made with black liquorice. It sounds like this person was already on an EXTREMELY bad diet. I have perso…

I'm not sure if I'm reading this correctly but this might also be one of those cases where the English language didn't help in the slightest:

"Red liquorice" is not what a German/Dutch/Scandinavian person would call liquorice. It's just red soft candy. It doesn't contain the same active ingredients.

So "switching from red to black liquorice" is in fact just a complete switch of diet, not a slight change at all.

Re: Man dies from eating more than a bag of liquorice a day

#94

Post by umvi »

ponker wrote: post #91
umvi wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd think the package would have a warning on it?

Dutch people don’t need a warning to stop them from eating a pound of licorice in a sitting. Wanton excess as a way of life is culturally American.

...so just let tourists and foreigners in your country fend for themselves and hope the internet warns them before they eat too much unlabeled poison?

Re: Man dies from eating more than a bag of liquorice a day

#95

Post by ThePadawan »

crowbahr wrote: post #11
tootie wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything is toxic in high enough quantities.

Licorice is toxic in relatively low quantities though. > If you’re 40 or older, eating 2 ounces of black licorice a day for at least two weeks could land you in the hospital with an irregular heart rhythm or arrhythmia. https://www.fda.gov/consumers/consumer-updates/black-licoric...

That phrasing so annoyingly waffley. "Could" might mean "if you're already predisposed to arrhythmia" or "if you're somewhat allergic to the ingredients".

As it stands, I feel that sentence could apply to any atypical food, like pickled herring or durian fruit.

Re: Man dies from eating more than a bag of liquorice a day

#96

Post by copperx »

jdofaz wrote: post #77

Dr. Hibbert: Another broccoli-related death. Marge: But I thought broccoli was— Dr. Hibbert: Oh yes. One of the deadliest plants on Earth. Why, it tries to warn you itself with its terrible taste. I feel the same about Liquorice

I have always wondered whether liquorice is an acquired taste. I find it vile, and I'm glad for that.

Re: Man dies from eating more than a bag of liquorice a day

#97

Post by ThePadawan »

sjg007 wrote: post #13

Wow.. unusual case but perhaps black licorice needs to come with warning labels!

It doesn't in the US?

The strongest liquorice in Germany has to be labelled (translated word-by-word) as "Strong liquorice, extra strong, liquorice for adults - not children's liquorice" [0]

[0] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakritz#Zusammensetzung_von_La...

Re: Man dies from eating more than a bag of liquorice a day

#98

Post by copperx »

jasonv wrote: post #3
mikecoles wrote: post #2

I did some looking into what made black licorice taste so good and to see if enjoying it was genetic. I was surprised to find out it can be toxic. All of these years my grandfather and I have been poisoning each other. Guess we should celebrate we survived it with a pint of sarsaparilla.

I've been eating a small handful of gluten-free licorice daily for the last couple of months.. dang.

Is liquorice derived from wheat?

Re: Man dies from eating more than a bag of liquorice a day

#99

Post by Smileyferret »

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apparent_mineralocorticoid_exc...

We actually learned about this in med school last week, but I never thought it actually happened to people... Licorice contains glycyrrhetinic acid which inhibits the conversion of cortisol to cortisone. If you have too much cortisol floating around because of this, that cortisol starts activating receptors in your kidneys that are normally activated by aldosterone. This in turn increases your sodium resorption and potassium excretion, so you get high blood pressure and low potassium which can cause arrhythmias. It's called the Syndrome of Apparent Mineralocorticoid Excess and is a usually genetic problem with the enzyme that breaks down cortisol.

Re: Man dies from eating more than a bag of liquorice a day

#100

Post by WalterSear »

baby wrote: post #26
AnotherGoodName wrote: post #22

Another similar one is chocolate poisoning. Humans can handle 3 times more chocolate per KG of body mass than dogs so the risk is much smaller to us but we're still susceptible at the extremes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theobromine_poisoning

Oh gosh, I used to eat massive amounts of chocolate for easter when I was a kid and I would get really sick from it.

Fwiw, high doses of theobromine feel like very high doses of caffeine, but with much more anxiety. So, if you were bouncing off the walls and couldn't sit down or sleep for 24+ hours, that would be theobromine.
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