A Massachusetts construction worker passed away due to his addiction to licorice. Every day the man ate about a bag and a half — and in the end it cost him his life.
The 54-year-old patient, whose name has not been released, did not have any anxiety symptoms until after his heart stopped at a fast food restaurant. Describing the case in the New England Journal of Medicine, the doctors explained that the glycyrrhizic acid in licorice is to blame.
According to Dr. Elazer R. Edelman, acid can cause «hypertension, hypokalemia» (in which blood potassium levels become dangerously low), «metabolic alkalosis, fatal arrhythmias, and renal failure.» All this was observed in the patient.
The man also recently changed the type of sweets he ate — in particular, switching to black licorice just a few weeks before his death.
