[HN Gopher] Man dies from eating more than a bag of liquorice a day
___________________________________________________________________
Man dies from eating more than a bag of liquorice a day
Author : kjakm
Score : 127 points
Date : 2020-09-24 15:47 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.co.uk)
| legitster wrote:
| > "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 personally known construction workers who live off of
| three square meals of gas station junk food for weeks at a time.
| ThePadawan wrote:
| 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.
| jboog wrote:
| Yep, I worked at a golf course in groundskeeping for a summer
| after HS. The diet of the "old timers" was absolutely
| ridiculous.
|
| The worst, Jim, his lunch every day was literally a can of
| Coca-Cola and a can of Vienna Sausages (shitty canned tiny hot
| dogs for those that don't know). God knows what he ate
| before/after work.
|
| He had a heart attack one day at work. Was only in his early
| 50s.
| blub wrote:
| What became of Jim, do you know?
| lostlogin wrote:
| An old timer in his early 50s?
| xtiansimon wrote:
| Why not. Groundskeeper (manual labor) at 50, when you could
| presumably start that job at 16. At 16, anything over 40
| (visible signs of aging) is an ol'timer
| saalweachter wrote:
| Especially when you have a job that uses a lot of
| seasonal teenage labor. You end up with one group of
| employees who is "young" (16-early 20s) and works there
| in the summer, and one group that is "old" (25+) and
| works there year round.
| srpinto wrote:
| Yes. I would call you old timer in your 40's. I'm 36 and
| I'm fine with that.
| athms wrote:
| Sure, kiddo. Does your mommy and daddy know you're using
| the computer?
| pengaru wrote:
| It's at least in quotes...
| [deleted]
| callumprentice wrote:
| I am a huge fan of liquorice and have been for years but had no
| idea it could cause hypertension. Since my favorite type is the
| really salty Dutch kind, I did wonder if that made it worse.
| However, one of the symptoms is hypokalemia (low potassium) and I
| _think_ the Dutch salt is potassium based so maybe it 's actually
| helpful. He said, optimistically.
| vidarh wrote:
| Is it not using ammonium chloride? That's usually what is used
| for salty licorice in Scandinavia.
|
| It takes huge amounts or really low amounts of potassium in
| your diet for it to be a problem.
|
| Frankly you're likely to notice it on your stools long before
| you consume enough to be a problem.
|
| If you eat lots of licorice mostly just ensure you get enough
| potassium from other sources.
| callumprentice wrote:
| Oh yes - that's right. I knew it wasn't plain old sodium
| chloride but I remember now that's it's ammonium chloride.
| Thanks for pointing that out.
| gambiting wrote:
| So as an aside - I've had some salted liquorice in Sweden, and
| the closest I can't compare this experience to is having drain
| cleaner poured on your tongue, and then rubbed in with some
| sandpaper. But hey, we eat pickled mushrooms and meat in jelly,
| so what do I know ;-)
| SAI_Peregrinus wrote:
| Aaah, but it's like having drain cleaner poured on your
| tongue and rubbed in with sandpaper, but in a way that for
| whatever weird reason makes you want to try it again. And
| again. It's oddly tasty, and you keep thinking "it can't
| possibly be as bad as the last time" and then it is. But
| still hauntingly tasty.
|
| Weird experience. I want to spit it out, but I also want
| another piece.
|
| On a side note, the salt used (ammonium chloride) is also a
| primary component of soldering iron tip cleaner. You can buy
| blocks of the stuff for that purpose, it's highly effective
| (though extremely aggressive, so to be used only after the
| wet sponge and brass wool have failed to remove the oxide).
| Works about like you'd expect it to, given the taste.
| callumprentice wrote:
| Wait until you try the Finnish salty liquorice alcohol called
| Salmiakkikossu. I love the salty candy but this is foul :) I
| read once that it was best described as old tractor tires
| marinated in moose piss :)
| frank2 wrote:
| You can buy deglycyrrhized licorice. Example:
|
| https://www.vitalnutrients.net/dgl-powder.html
|
| This product is usually used to improve health, not for its taste
| (though it does taste good IME), and does not contain sugar.
| Shorel wrote:
| And here in South America I think I have never tried liquorice
| even once.
|
| That and root beer.
|
| I don't know if I will like the taste, I just want to know it.
|
| EDIT: Why the downvotes? If could buy that stuff I would have!
| jrumbut wrote:
| Root beer is a fun and popular flavor, some people like it more
| than others.
|
| Black liquorice is a bombardment of a very strange flavor. It's
| a mix bitter, medicinal, sickly sweet, no idea how to describe
| it.
|
| Check this reaction video out, it gets funny around 6:20:
| https://youtu.be/yHetC2G-xVo
| iso8859-1 wrote:
| If you go to your local Scandinavian meetup after the pandemic,
| people may have some.
|
| You can also get it in Rio:
| https://produto.mercadolivre.com.br/MLB-1513513626-tiras-alc...
| yread wrote:
| Is the liquid one also poisonous? Asking for a friend...
| Wistar wrote:
| 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 this to a Danish friend and he said,
| "Oh, yeah, you never want to eat much of that. People have
| damaged their eyesight from eating too much."
| umvi wrote:
| You'd think the package would have a warning on it?
| mr_toad wrote:
| Where do you draw the line?
|
| People have died from drinking too much water, probably more
| than have been killed by liquorice.
| ponker wrote:
| 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.
| umvi wrote:
| ...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?
| rabboRubble wrote:
| let's hope those tourists and foreigners read Dutch if
| and when labels are added to packaging!
| ben_w wrote:
| I use Google Translate when I browse food somewhere I
| can't read the language.
| dang wrote:
| This comment and
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24581592 are obviously
| not cool. If you keep posting flamewar comments we're going
| to have to ban you again. I don't want to do that, so can
| you please fix this?
|
| Did you not see
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23255339 or
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23469154?
| ponker wrote:
| What is your claim here? That Americans do not consume in
| absurd quantities as a way of life? Meat, sugar, oil,
| land, etc.? Is this even a matter of serious debate?
| asxd wrote:
| You get to choose the things you say, and although many
| might agree your statement has some truth to it, I don't
| see how it adds any substance to the conversation.
| dang wrote:
| My claim is that you have been trolling HN with
| nationalistic flamebait ("Wanton excess as a way of life
| is culturally American") and we need you to stop.
| httpsterio wrote:
| The acts of an individual is not indicative of a whole
| country. Don't generalize, it's of poor taste.
| samatman wrote:
| The Netherlands has a 20% obesity rate.
|
| Granted that this isn't the 36% in the United States.
|
| But it doesn't justify your confident claim that
| Nederlanders never engage in 'wanton consumption';
| clearly a fifth of your compatriots take a third
| stroopwafel when a single serving would suffice.
| Wistar wrote:
| It usually is sold loose, by the gram, in DK.
| flemhans wrote:
| I would always buy it in bags.
| icedistilled wrote:
| Ah Then purpose of the salty licorice with ammonium chloride
| must be to prevent people from consuming too much in one
| sitting.
|
| Usually I can only make it 2/3rd through a single piece before
| the ammonia flavor is too over powering.
| Wistar wrote:
| The licorice pipes were not the super-strong shiny black
| variety but the somewhat sweet, softer black licorice that,
| when torn, is a dark brown inside.
| verst wrote:
| I loved eating that stuff as a kid growing up in Germany.
| Still do, but can't easily find it in Seattle.
|
| It's a very acquired flavor... just like I absolutely cannot
| get used to the taste of IPAs.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| > It's a very acquired flavor...
|
| I don't think that it is actually "acquired". You liked it
| as a child, and still do. I find it to be vile and
| inedible, and always have. This preference seems to innate
| and fixed.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Sort of like Jaegermeister. I can't believe people drink
| that by choice.
| pwinnski wrote:
| Across the bay in Poulsbo, there's a little store with
| quite a few varieties of licorice, including some _very_
| salty stuff.
| djxfade wrote:
| It's so strange to me as a Scandinavian to read this. We love
| that stuff
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Can't imagine why someone from the land of fermented shark
| flesh would like the flavor of ammonia.
| simongray wrote:
| In Denmark we mixed in some pepper with the salt, making
| salty licorice with pepper inside (Tyrkisk Peber). People
| love that stuff.
| mstade wrote:
| I just ate a bag of it tonight in Sweden, I love that
| stuff!
| WorldMaker wrote:
| The origin of salty licorice was as a throat lozenge (same
| reason a singer might gargle salt water ever so often to keep
| their throat healthy) in cold/freezing fishing waters. (The
| salt was the important bit, the licorice was just the flavor
| the fisherman really like to make it sweeter and easier to
| chew.) It wasn't invented to be an appetite suppressor,
| though for a lot of people it certainly is. (Not many people
| like salty licorice, given a choice.) (Also, ironically, salt
| in general is not an appetite suppressant and there are
| documentaries about why salt was added to so many foods to
| increase consumption.)
| neurostimulant wrote:
| As a person from a tropical country, I was puzzled with all
| those salty "candy" sold in the west. I ate one and thought
| who the hell would eat this horrible salty candy on
| purpose? So those are actually good for the throat on
| freezing climate?
| andyroid wrote:
| From a Nordic country myself and have never experienced
| that effect, nor heard of anyone who would eat it for
| that. We just like it for the taste. Getting a little
| more cautious from reading all the comments here though!
| guenthert wrote:
| > (Not many people like salty licorice, given a choice.)
|
| That's about as sensible as saying "Not many people like
| salty popcorn".
| sfjailbird wrote:
| I went to the doctor with acute high blood pressure that
| appeared out of nowhere. Symptoms were an untreatable headache
| and swelling in the facial region, lasting for a few days.
|
| In the end, I figured out that the cause was eating a big
| package of the same soft sweet black licorice. I even kept
| eating it during symptoms, making the condition worse.
|
| My main reaction, after learning that the licorice could cause
| this, was how the hell is there not a huge warning on the
| packaging? I can only imagine how bad it could get if I had
| been already suffering from hypertension when eating it.
| oxymoran wrote:
| I had a similar issue with the acute HBP out of nowhere and
| constant headaches. My liver levels were also all out of
| whack. I never figure out what caused it but it did resolve
| after several weeks. My BP and liver are completely normal
| now. The best I could do was narrow it down to recently
| starting to drink a ton of green tea or some supplements that
| I had started taking. I just cut it all out and it went away.
| maskull wrote:
| "Of all the compounds, glycyrrhizin was the most active in
| inhibiting replication of the SARS-associated virus."
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7112442/
| timdorr wrote:
| Well, this is just wacky:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7311916/
|
| So, I guess take some potassium with black licorice and you'll
| defeat COVID-19!
| throwawayForMe2 wrote:
| It can also raise blood pressure.
| 1-more wrote:
| I've been thinking I wanted to incorporate it into my next
| powerlifting meet as a game-day PED because I can absolutely
| notice my blood pressure going up while eating it. Great now I
| need to write a grant proposal for the study...
| thisisnico wrote:
| I stay far far away from competition as a
| powerlifter/bodybuilder. You pretty much need PED's just to
| compete, and not even to compete well, PED's + Insane
| training and Diet for that.
| starkred wrote:
| 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 because the damage is visible
| after two weeks doesn't mean that it doesn't occur in quantities
| below that amount.
| 01100011 wrote:
| 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.
| stan_rogers wrote:
| Twizzlers aren't exactly Pomfrey (Pontefract) cakes. You'd
| really need to go to town on them. On t'other hand, if you pick
| through Allsorts to avoid the more creamy ones (ugh), or
| actually dealing with Pomfrey cakes (or their other Nothern
| European relatives) you really have to watch it. But then, if
| you're doing 60-ish grams of any sweet daily, you might want to
| rethink your diet.
| tzs wrote:
| You almost certainly do not need to completely drop black
| licorice. From what the article you linked says, it doesn't
| sound like it directly damages the heart or the things that
| regulate heart rhythm.
|
| The glycyrrhizin in black licorice lowers potassium levels, and
| heart rhythm regulation depends on potassium levels. Stop
| eating glycyrrhizin, and the potassium levels come back to
| normal.
|
| If you only eat black licorice occasionally, and limit your
| quantity then so that you do not get enough glycyrrhizin to
| lower potassium levels to where they actually cause anything
| bad to happen, you should be perfectly safe. As a precaution,
| next time you have occasion to have a blood test, get your
| doctor to include a potassium test. If that doesn't come back
| close to the low end of the normal range, an occasional bit of
| licorice should be fine.
|
| If a potassium test isn't too expensive, it might be
| interesting to have another test shortly after you have
| consumed some licorice, to try to get an idea of how much it
| affects potassium for you.
|
| I wonder if the potassium lowering effect of glycyrrhizin could
| be countered by eating the licorice with something else that is
| high in potassium. Eat a banana with your licorice, say. Or
| maybe take a potassium supplement on days you want to eat
| licorice?
| DVassallo wrote:
| Something can be harmless or even beneficial at one dose, and
| fatal at another dose.
|
| People have died from drinking too much water. Or breathing too
| much oxygen.
| BrandoElFollito wrote:
| I know that this is not related but I cannot unsee the comments
| about a similar sweet (Haribo sugar free bear) [1]
|
| We do not have these in France (despite having the Haribo museum
| in the south) so I cannot tell whether this is true or just a
| sophisticated ad campaign.
|
| I am generally very skeptical about food that is completely made
| up from non-food (that is above "processed") but in the case of
| licorice this is a sweet we had in France since always (from what
| I saw, you usually have the ones who love out and the onces who
| hate it, with a rather empty "meh" section)
|
| [1] https://slightlyviral.com/beware-sugarless-gummy-bears-on-
| am...
| ChickeNES wrote:
| > We do not have these in France (despite having the Haribo
| museum in the south) so I cannot tell whether this is true or
| just a sophisticated ad campaign.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xylitol#Humans
|
| Though I don't know what you mean by "non-foods"?
| throwanem wrote:
| All sugar alcohols do this, not just xylitol. It's worth
| keeping in mind, as they are quite common sugar substitutes.
| nicoburns wrote:
| I think non-foods are things like sweeteners which we
| literally can't digest and just go straight through us.
| They're not nutritious, and thus arguably aren't food at all
| (although you can eat them).
| royletron wrote:
| I always knew the Dutch Apekoppen or 'banana monkeys' were the
| perfect way to enjoy the dangerous black stuff. The mix of high
| potassium banana with the lethal liquorice makes it both
| delicious and safe
|
| https://www.mrsbeightons.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Ba...
|
| PS not endorsed by any kind of real science...
| umvi wrote:
| Like drinking a jagerbomb where the outer glass is filled with
| poison and the inner glass is filled with antidote
| bjornedstrom wrote:
| I think this article is a good example of conflating cause and
| effect. But not in a fallacious way or value-negative way: it
| more highlights well, I think, that there is a difficult gray
| area where "cause" and "effect" both are related and separated
| from each other, but not in an obviously clear cut way.
|
| So he died from hypokalemia and other reasons, but the main (or
| only) reason for his hypokalemia was the licorice habit. I think
| this is a good example when it's both correct and not correct to
| say that the licorice "caused" the death.
|
| Contrast with two examples on the two extremes:
|
| Consider a situation when he had instead of licorice had ingested
| some obviously known poison: then I think it's a much more valid
| statement to say that "man dies from eating poison", because the
| idea of the poison and the idea of death are very close together.
|
| Consider a different situation where the man was smoking one pack
| of cigarettes _per month_ or _per year_. Then it's not as obvious
| to say "man dies from smoking". The smoking probably contributed
| to the death in various complex ways.
|
| So you could say that "man dies due from hypokalemia due to
| excessive licorice consumption not counterbalanced by having an
| otherwise healthy diet" which is possibly more nuanced, and
| possibly more (or less) helpful depending on what your purpose is
| to clarify or simplify things.
|
| Thanks for sharing this article, I find this a good and fairly
| apolitical educational example that I can use when talking about
| complex causal relations in the future: how cause and effect can
| be conflated in both positive and negative ways depending on who
| you are talking to, what you are talking about, and what the
| purpose of the discussion is.
| nikk1 wrote:
| Using that gray area is the art to creating news headlines
| cmehdy wrote:
| I sure am glad the BBC reports on a death by licorice over, say,
| the Assange hearing. It is indeed vitally important for me to
| hear such news after all.
| Angostura wrote:
| The BBC reported on the trial 3 days ago, no-one seems to have
| reported on the last 2 days, so its possible that there weren't
| proceedings.
| cmehdy wrote:
| Through HN the link seems to be posted each day with the
| updates, but if you haven't had the chance to catch it, there
| are at least two sources for the daily:
|
| https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/
|
| https://twitter.com/kgosztola
|
| No major news outlet however, and not even Amnesty
| international which was not authorized to join.
| alekratz wrote:
| People can think about more than one thing at a time, you know
| cmehdy wrote:
| That's always the argument put forward, isn't it? But
| apparently in this case they can't, since they haven't. (yes,
| that is also a syllogism)
|
| Also worth noting that the definition of "news" seems to be
| fairly elusive, when this sort of "news" is worthy of an
| article and the other sort isn't.
| icedistilled wrote:
| You came to look at it. That's why it was newsworthy, it's the
| news that people want to read.
|
| News follows views.
| cmehdy wrote:
| Out of curiosity, following that definition how do you
| semantically separate news from entertainment?
|
| I'm not asking because I am convinced that I have the answer,
| but because the question is worth being asked :)
| jdofaz wrote:
| 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
| copperx wrote:
| I have always wondered whether liquorice is an acquired taste.
| I find it vile, and I'm glad for that.
| svachalek wrote:
| I've always wondered if it's something like cilantro. They've
| identified a gene that makes cilantro taste soapy to some.
| Maybe there's something similar with licorice since I've
| noticed many people seem to have a strong negative reaction
| to it. (I find the flavor mild but interesting, like
| vanilla.)
| nullc wrote:
| They identified a variation which is needed to distinguish
| a chemical in cilantro at all.
|
| Having that variation is necessary but not sufficient for
| finding it has a soapy taste.
| jdofaz wrote:
| I like cilantro a lot but think licorice is gross
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| Apparently that's not known to science, but I feel certain
| that it's genetic, innate and not learned. It's
| inconceivable that I'll ever "acquire" a tolerance for that
| vile inedible substance. My partner loves it though.
|
| https://theconversation.com/the-science-of-liquorice-
| whether...
|
| https://www.shared.com/your-black-licorice-preference-
| depend...
| EForEndeavour wrote:
| Humor aside: oven-roasted or pan-seared broccoli with garlic,
| salt, and butter tastes amazing! And depending on how much salt
| and butter you add, is probably way safer to eat than black
| liquorice.
| thehappypm wrote:
| Literally any vegetable is good with salt pepper and butter
| :)
| DoofusOfDeath wrote:
| Another variation, which my family really enjoys is: cut
| fresh broccoli into small florets; toss with olive oil and
| (optionally) salt/pepper; roast in oven at high temp until
| desired softness.
|
| I tried butter with my broccoli once, and I found it tasted
| unpleasantly fatty. (And I'm no stranger to fatty foods.)
| NineStarPoint wrote:
| I don't really buy that it makes that much of a difference.
| As a child I hated all forms of broccoli, could barely
| stomach it. Now that I've grown older I find even the plain
| steamed stuff edible. While I certainly like it prepped like
| you described, it still in the end has the taste of broccoli
| in it. I have a hard time imagining someone who hates the
| vegetable caring about how it was prepared.
| nicoburns wrote:
| It probably makes more of a difference if you kind-of liked
| it to start with. I will happily munch on broccoli and
| other green veg out of choice, but it can taste a bit
| plain. If you salt and butter it, it brings out the
| flavour, which is a good thing if you like the underlying
| taste.
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| A little acid (lemon juice) goes a long way too.
| Wistar wrote:
| Well, what about black licorice with salt and butter?
| parksy wrote:
| Anethole, one of the major flavour components of liquorice,
| is shared among a range of popular cooking herbs and
| spices.
|
| Milder-tasting fennel goes great with loads of cooking,
| it's quite common to chop up a fennel root to add to slow-
| cook roasts / braises, or sprinkle fennel seeds over roasts
| and mix into dry rubs.
|
| Anise has a stronger flavour than fennel, which lends
| itself to stocks, sauces and curries.
|
| Less commonly you'll see liquorice root itself used in
| cooking, I haven't used it myself but I don't see why it
| wouldn't work - if balanced out and seasoned properly.
|
| edit: Of course, just pan frying a slab of black liquorice
| with salt and butter would get mixed reactions, personally
| I'd find it overpowering, like eating straight up
| peppercorns even though they work well in moderation as a
| seasoning.
| _ph_ wrote:
| I love the taste of broccoli :p.
|
| (and have to admit, that occasionally I enjoy the taste of
| liquorice, though I only eat it extremely rarely)
| riffic wrote:
| How much is "a bag"? This is a terrible unit of measurement.
| sjg007 wrote:
| Wow.. unusual case but perhaps black licorice needs to come with
| warning labels!
| ThePadawan wrote:
| 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...
| lepton wrote:
| That just sounds like an invitation to try! No indication of
| possible harmful effects?
| davidw wrote:
| It does: it has a horrible, awful taste!
| freeqaz wrote:
| It is such a delicious flavor. Mmmmm... Red licorice is a
| scam!
| davidw wrote:
| I like red licorice, but probably because it's just sugary
| and has some generic 'red' flavor to it.
|
| _Edit_ I got curious and looked it up. It is indeed not
| really licorice: http://archive.boston.com/business/article
| s/2011/08/29/whats...
| kyriakos wrote:
| evolution has armed us with a way of detecting food that is
| not good for us but in this case since its all blended with
| sugar and other dietary "desirable" ingredients it may fool
| us.
| davidw wrote:
| I think black licorice must be genetic. Some people
| actually enjoy that flavor.
| doublesCs wrote:
| Huh, so it's not just me. I always wondered.
| HenryBemis wrote:
| It's like Marmite.. you either love it or hate it (I hate
| it).
| rbanffy wrote:
| I actually found it meh. It's just weird.
| baby wrote:
| Every time you post something it's something I could have
| posted myself. This is truly weird as we share the same name.
| D2187645 wrote:
| now kith
| elmo2you wrote:
| As a Dutch person (in Holland licorice is pretty popular too), I
| can tell from personal experience that there should be put a big
| emphasis on "licorice =>COULD<= be dangerous".
|
| I have had periods where I would easily eat a bag oe more of this
| stuff on a daily basis and for prolonged periods, without even a
| single hint of the mentioned symptoms, nor anything else that
| could be related the claimed underlying problem. I also don't
| recall anyone else with such problems, other than maybe people
| with a horrible overall lifestyle combined with a taste for
| licorice.
|
| Very well possible that these are particular conditions (like
| overall shitty lifestyle and addiction to sugar/carbs) that would
| make licorice potentially harmful. However, at that point,
| someone will probably have plenty of other things to worry about.
|
| I'm by no means disputing that this stuff can cause serious
| problems for individual people. But I also know plenty of cases,
| myself being one of those, where even copious amounts of licorice
| caused no (discernible) problems whatsoever.
|
| That itself should questioning the validity of any claimed
| toxicity, which might only occur under specific circumstances.
| One might argue that eating sugary candies all day and maybe
| little proper nutrients aside, could be more of a "cause" than
| the licorice itself. Even if compounds inside licorice might
| exacerbate problems even further.
| ponker wrote:
| The demented quantities (of everything) that are very common in
| the US are probably very infrequent in Holland.
| elmo2you wrote:
| I get your point and I personally do consider the dietary
| habits of many Americans outright insane (though it has to be
| said that many may have not as much "choice" to eat more
| healthy, since healthy food appears to have become a
| inaccessible privilege for many).
|
| However, I would (in periods) eat up to 500~700 grams of this
| stuff myself. Not quite what you could call a small amount by
| any measure. Still, not a single health issue. I'm over 40.
|
| What I think is the bigger problem here is a sensationalized
| and alarmist presentation of an individual case, where
| supposedly a "medical" explanation is given for how licorice
| was the culprit. In reality there might be many other (and
| possibly more significant) factors involved.
|
| I think that what pisses me off most here, is that the BCC
| (hiding under a protective cover of presenting "news", while
| pursuing more clicks), implicitly (and probably
| unintentionally) more or less is giving false "medical
| advice" to readers who just don't know any better (unless
| they come from a culture where licorice is popular).
| FandangoRanger wrote:
| Liquorice is not licorice in the US. Only licorice has licorice
| in it. Liquorice does not.
| netule wrote:
| Indeed. I'm a Dutch guy who migrated to the US and have had to
| import all my licorice from abroad since it just doesn't taste
| the same.
|
| Though, now I may want to rethink this consumption.
| thrownaway954 wrote:
| "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.
|
| He had suffered no symptoms before suddenly going into cardiac
| arrest in a fast food restaurant.
|
| i think more than liquorice is blame for this dudes death
| [deleted]
| Reedx wrote:
| A man eats an entire bag of liquorice. This is what happened to
| his kidneys.
|
| Hyperliquemia
|
| Hyper, meaning high. liqu, referring to liquorice. emia, meaning
| presence in blood.
|
| High liquorice presence in blood.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/c/ChubbyemuGames/videos
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > emia, meaning presence in blood
|
| -em- (from haem-) just means blood. -ia should be interpreted
| as "condition". Presence isn't indicated.
| chromatin wrote:
| The condition -- not mentioned in the article -- is Apparent
| Mineralocorticoid Excess (AME). It is something that we read
| about 20 years ago in physiology textbook but I have yet to ever
| see in real life.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apparent_mineralocorticoid_exc...
| umvi wrote:
| Apparently a large amount of produced liquorice goes to flavor
| cigarettes, up to 4% of the weight of a cigarette's tobacco blend
| is liquorice[0]. So I would wager that smoking liquorice has
| killed more people than eating it (not that that tidbit of info
| helps in the case of the man in the article).
|
| [0]
| https://www.dkfz.de/de/tabakkontrolle/download/PITOC/PITOC_T...
| tedunangst wrote:
| I don't think it's the licorice that will kill you if you smoke
| 50 packs a day.
| umvi wrote:
| Let me put it this way - based on the article I cited,
| removing licorice from cigarettes would probably result in a
| measurable drop in addiction and cancer rates (perhaps single
| digit %, but still measureable).
| floren wrote:
| That would be a cigarette every 1.4 minutes, for the entire
| 24 hours, by the way :)
| klyrs wrote:
| On one hand, you can compress that to once per minute and
| get a reasonable amount of sleep. A quick and guilt-
| inducing search informs me that one Matthew Tybor smoked a
| cigarette in a mere 36.44 seconds, so I guess that's
| plausible if we ignore the carbon monoxide?
|
| On the other hand, nicotine is a stimulant, so maybe you
| wouldn't need to?
| [deleted]
| eeegnu wrote:
| 50 packs a month may be what they meant (about the average
| for chain smokers at more than 1 pack per day.) Or they did
| imply hyperbole.
| floren wrote:
| Almost certainly hyperbole, but imagining 50 packs a day
| made me run the numbers for a laugh.
| wolco2 wrote:
| For those in a panic Twizzlers Black Licorice is safe as it
| contains no glycyrrhizin. Most North American candy would be
| safe. Bulk store users look for signs.
| _Microft wrote:
| There was a case when a woman in Germany also ate lots of
| liquorice on a daily basis and developed health problems. The
| case went to court because she thought that she should have been
| warned by the producer. It was dismissed with a reason like
| "common sense dictates that this was a bad idea" (think: "lol,
| wut? u dumb").
| 74ls00 wrote:
| I don't know, seems reasonable to me. How many people on the
| street would know when asked what the safe dosage of liquorice
| is? Guess most would say it's no worse than any sugary candy.
| Is it not similar to an allergy?
| nicoburns wrote:
| > It was dismissed with a reason like "common sense dictates
| that this was a bad idea" (think: "lol, wut? u dumb").
|
| And this is why Europe is less litigious than the US (that and
| reasonable healthcare costs): the courts won't stand for
| frivolous cases.
| AnotherGoodName wrote:
| 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
| WorldMaker wrote:
| Humans can do it much easier with Caffeine. The pathways are
| related (and basically swapped between humans and dogs; in
| theory a dog would experience coffee more like we experience
| hot chocolate). That's why Four Loko was so dangerous and why a
| lot of colleges tend to have massive "Caffeine Pill Awareness"
| campaigns and why college administrators (and psychologists)
| have sometimes thought that Caffeine in any pill form should be
| "behind the counter" and somewhat strictly controlled because
| humans can't be trusted with Caffeine doses in pill form and
| overdoses are more common than a lot of people think.
| myself248 wrote:
| Aw jeez seriously? Caffeine pills are helping me kick my Dew
| habit.
|
| I suppose if the pills go behind the counter I can just get a
| kilo of the lab-grade powder and portion it out myself...
| that would actually make it easier than trying to break the
| pills in half to taper the dose.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| Everything I've read suggests you would be much better off
| using black coffee to wean from a soda habit, _especially_
| if you don 't like the taste of black coffee (because it
| might just wean you off caffeine altogether). The ritual of
| brewing a cup of coffee (even as simplified as it has
| gotten with modern single cup machines) is a useful
| slowdown to measure your doses by.
|
| Also, it's an easier switch than "cold turkey" from all the
| sugars of soda if you do want to cheat and not go straight
| to black coffee but start with sugars/creamers and work
| your way towards black as you acquire more of a taste for
| it.
|
| (ETA: And you can progress to black tea then
| red/green/white easily as a way to cut caffeine in stages.
| Anyway, good luck trying to break the Dew habit, I
| sympathize.)
| xyzzy_plugh wrote:
| > Everything I've read suggests you would be much better
| off using black coffee to wean from a soda habit,
| especially if you don't like the taste of black coffee
| (because it might just wean you off caffeine altogether).
| The ritual of brewing a cup of coffee (even as simplified
| as it has gotten with modern single cup machines) is a
| useful slowdown to measure your doses by.
|
| I find this funny. I don't have a soda habit (I do not
| enjoy drinking it regularly, but a couple times a month,
| maybe, is nice) but I drink a lot of black coffee! I love
| the taste, and even though I grind beans on a per-cup
| basis, and my kettle takes a while to get hot, and there
| is some cleanup involved, it doesn't stop me whatsoever.
| If I didn't like the taste, and needed milk/sugar, maybe
| things would be a different story...
| dangoor wrote:
| I eat more than my fair share of dark chocolate, so I took a
| look at that. The toxic levels are _a lot_ of chocolate, and I
| can't even imagine consuming anywhere near the lethal levels.
|
| That said, I think the black licorice case here also falls into
| the "levels I can't even imagine" category.
| baby wrote:
| 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.
| myself248 wrote:
| I made that mistake as a kid. Got a 3-pound bag of Milky Way
| Dark Minis for Christmas, and I'm sure it was supposed to
| last me several months, but I went through about half the bag
| watching TV that afternoon.
|
| The next morning I was so sick I don't have words for how
| sick I was. Once I finished with the first kind of sick, I
| still had a pounding headache, acute sensitivity to light and
| sound, etc.
|
| I described the symptoms to my dad, pleading for help, and
| his first reaction was "...do you have a hangover?"
|
| Good lord if that's what hangovers are like, why do people
| drink? To this day, I point to that experience as the reason
| I've never had more than two alcoholic drinks in a day. I
| just can't imagine...
| mywittyname wrote:
| In all fairness, this was probably due more to the massive
| sugar intake than the chocolate. Chocolate is expensive and
| cheap Easter candy producers probably try to minimize the
| amount they are actually putting into their candy to control
| costs.
| WalterSear wrote:
| 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.
| temptemptemp111 wrote:
| Well it is estrogenic
| Smileyferret wrote:
| 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.
| anonuser123456 wrote:
| Can this imbalance occur transiently?
|
| One time, I was awake for ~3 days straight. I ended up in the
| hospital (visual hallucinations) and the only thing remarkable
| was low potassium and high BP.
|
| But I've had this long running hypothesis that body has trouble
| with cortisol regulation when I'm extremely fatigued. If I miss
| a night of sleep, the next night it is extremely hard for me to
| fall asleep (cortisol inhibits sleep) and I have that terrible
| 'stress sweat' odor.
|
| Remeron will then knock me out... where as hypnotics will not.
| Remeron being interesting because it inhibits the production of
| cortisol.
| pkaye wrote:
| So it would me even more deadly if they were taking Prednisone?
| Smileyferret wrote:
| Not necessarily. Believe it or not, dexamethasone (another
| corticosteroid) is actually a second-line treatment for this
| disease because it reduces endogenous cortisol production
| without binding too tightly to the mineralocorticoid receptor
| in the kidneys.
| mrkstu wrote:
| I starting to suspect I have a variety of such genetic
| endowments- gout because I can't break down uric acid, high
| blood pressure that gets instantly elevated when I eat black
| licorice (which I loved as a kid), variety of allergies, Type
| II Diabetes (along with most of my sibs, regardless of their
| diets.)
|
| Hopefully Dad's Parkinsons isn't genetic...
| zaroth wrote:
| Anyone else suddenly yearning for liquorice?
| samatman wrote:
| Ah, see, I love black liquorice. I always thought people who hate
| it just lack an adventurous palate, but at least it was an
| opportunity to relieve them of their black jellybeans.
|
| It turns out I was simply ignoring a clear biological signal that
| the substance is dangerous, in the pursuit of pleasurable
| sensation.
|
| Ah well. Wouldn't be the first time, and won't be the last!
| vector_spaces wrote:
| If any of you drink Traditional Medicinals or Yogi brand teas
| when you're sick (Throat Coat, Cold Care, etc), note that many of
| them contain licorice root and therefore glycyrrhizic acid. It
| drives me crazy that there weren't more prominent warnings on
| these because people tend to drink dozens of cups a day when
| they're sick, which can be dangerous for certain people
| mikecoles wrote:
| 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.
| tootie wrote:
| Everything is toxic in high enough quantities.
| wffurr wrote:
| https://xkcd.com/1260/
| crowbahr wrote:
| 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...
| ThePadawan wrote:
| 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.
| tyingq wrote:
| _" Well, sassafras and sarsaparilla both contain safrole, a
| compound recently banned by the FDA due to its carcinogenic
| effects."_[1]
|
| Argh.
|
| [1] https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/did-you-know/root-root-
| bee...
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Yeah, I'm sure the ban on safrole had nothing to do with its
| use in making MDMA.
|
| But I see that the FDA _still_ hasn't banned cigarettes. Not
| enough evidence?
| [deleted]
| kempbellt wrote:
| > what made black licorice taste so good
|
| It's amazing that people can have such different tastes. I
| absolutely hate the taste of black licorice.
|
| Though the act of poisoning yourself and others for fun is an
| extremely normalized behavior, and has been for thousands of
| years. We just call it drinking (alcohol).
| Someone wrote:
| _"I absolutely hate the taste of black licorice."_
|
| Liquorice is an acquired taste
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acquired_taste). You have to
| learn to like it.
| gridlockd wrote:
| I'm quite sure it is genetic. I've hated it since
| childhood, whereas my mutant childhood friends liked it.
|
| I've acquired several tastes since then, I've tried
| licorice multiple times, to no avail.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| > An acquired taste ... You have to learn to like it.
|
| Why? it tastes inedible, repulsive and vile to me. I'm
| happy for your tastes, but people tend to either like
| licorice from an early age, or never do. The preference
| seems strongly innate, not "acquired". Why put myself
| through something horrid that my body does not want and
| never will?
| kempbellt wrote:
| So is beer and I've learned to enjoy beer.
|
| I've yet to learn to like licorice and lost interest in
| trying.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > You have to learn to like it.
|
| This is absolutely untrue.
| wrp wrote:
| Growing up in the USA, my impression was that licorice is
| one of the most popular candy flavors among children. As an
| adult, I was surprised to discover that every Korean and
| Japanese I offered licorice to reacted violently to the
| taste...wouldn't even try to be polite about it. I doubt
| it's genetic, so I've often wondered what about their diet
| predisposes them to have such a negative taste sensation.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| > I doubt it's genetic
|
| Why doubt it so much? "It's genetic" would be the
| simplest explanation why the preference so fixed and
| polarising. And also why it's concentrated in some
| geographic regions.
| irrational wrote:
| I wonder if it is like cilantro. It tastes like soap to me,
| but my wife loves it. Apparently there is a physiological
| reason for that. Maybe it is similar with black licorice.
| brundolf wrote:
| Liquorice is one of those things like cilantro that's highly
| polarizing. You either love it or you deeply, passionately
| despise it. I too would tend to assume there's a genetic
| component, though I don't know.
|
| It does make for a convenient economy of people who will eat
| the black jellybeans from others' bags :)
| jasonv wrote:
| I've been eating a small handful of gluten-free licorice daily
| for the last couple of months.. dang.
| copperx wrote:
| Is liquorice derived from wheat?
| pvaldes wrote:
| Not, is from the root of a legume. Anything that
| substitutes cereal flour by legume flour is gluten free.
| Same if you just mash the dried root to extract the flavor,
| instead to eat the candy bar.
|
| The problem is that legume flour is normally very toxic in
| raw, and therefore more complicated to produce.
|
| Legumes have a much better reputation than Solanaceae, but
| they are still able to build some serious chemical weapons.
| Licorice belongs to the same tribe as Colutea, a genus used
| to poison mammals. Is the only genus seen as edible in its
| group if I'm not wrong. I don't know if it can be
| adulterated.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| No, but the candy has to have some kind of structural
| element.
| rvieira wrote:
| I find it incredible that some people enjoy liquorice (the
| stuff tastes vile to me). Ironically, I know some people that
| think the same of me when I tell them I love cilantro.
| tachyonbeam wrote:
| It tastes absolutely horrible to me. I guess somewhere deep
| down, I knew all along that it's actually poison.
| boomlinde wrote:
| Poisonous like water, table salt and other substances that
| are lethal in excess and benign or even essential in
| moderation.
| smoyer wrote:
| > Poisonous like water
|
| http://dhmo.org/
| kenned3 wrote:
| No, Poisonous like water :
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication
|
| if you drink enough of it too quickly, it will overload
| your kidneys and kill you.
| gridlockd wrote:
| You wouldn't casually consume toxic amounts of water or
| table salt, but a bag and half of licorice per day doesn't
| sound all that excessive to me.
| vidarh wrote:
| A bag and a half of licorice a day _without_ adequate
| dietary sources of potassium.
|
| And a bag and a half of licorice a day for any length of
| time would wreak havoc on your digestion.
| MayeulC wrote:
| I personally like chewing on sticks. The sweets? Not so much.
|
| "The dose makes the poison" -- Paracelsus; pretty much on
| point in this case.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquorice#Food_and_confectione.
| ..
| postalrat wrote:
| I typically hate licorice but love anise pizzelles.
| jrumbut wrote:
| Could you describe the flavor? I understand there are
| differences in whether people but I'd love to hear if we are
| experiencing a similar and evaluating it differently or what.
|
| I can withstand the flavor but not sure I would ever seek it
| out.
| irrational wrote:
| > A few weeks before his death, he switched from red fruit-
| flavoured twists to another type made with black liquorice...
| Further investigation revealed a recent change to a liquorice-
| containing candy as the likely cause of his hypokalemia.
|
| I don't like black licorice, but I love red licorice. I too blame
| his change from red to black licorice.
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