Massachusetts man dies from eating bags of black licorice

A Massachusetts development employee’s love of black licorice wound up costing him his life. Eating a bag and a half each day for a number of weeks threw his vitamins out of whack and triggered the 54-year-old man’s coronary heart to cease, medical doctors reported Wednesday.

“Even a small amount of licorice you eat can increase your blood pressure a little bit,” stated Dr. Neel Butala, a heart specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital who described the case within the New England Journal of Medicine.

The downside is glycyrrhizic acid, present in black licorice and in lots of different meals and dietary dietary supplements containing licorice root extract. It could cause dangerously low potassium and imbalances in different minerals referred to as electrolytes.

Eating as little as 2 ounces of black licorice a day for 2 weeks may trigger a coronary heart rhythm downside, particularly for people over 40, the US Food and Drug Administration warns.

“It’s more than licorice sticks. It could be jelly beans, licorice teas, a lot of things over the counter. Even some beers, like Belgian beers, have this compound in it,” as do some chewing tobaccos, stated Dr. Robert Eckel, a University of Colorado heart specialist and former American Heart Association president. He had no position within the Massachusetts man’s care.

The demise was clearly an excessive case. The man had switched from pink, fruit-flavored twists to the black licorice model of the sweet a number of weeks earlier than his demise final 12 months. He collapsed whereas having lunch at a fast-food restaurant. Doctors discovered he had dangerously low potassium, which led to coronary heart rhythm and different issues. Emergency responders did CPR and he revived however died the subsequent day.

The FDA permits as much as 3.1% of a meals’s content material to have glycyrrhizic acid, however many candies and different licorice merchandise don’t reveal how a lot of it’s contained per ounce, Butala stated. Doctors have reported the case to the FDA in hope of elevating consideration to the danger.

Jeff Beckman, a spokesman for the Hershey Company, which makes the favored Twizzlers licorice twists, stated in an electronic mail that “all of our products are safe to eat and formulated in full compliance with FDA regulations,” and that each one meals, together with sweet, “should be enjoyed in moderation.”