Page 18 - IAV Digital Magazine #483

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Woman Who Mistook Wasabi For Avocado Hospitalized With ‘Broken Heart Syndrome,' Report Says
By Madeline Farber | Fox News
An Israeli woman was hospitalized with so-called “bro- ken heart syn- drome” after mistaking wasabi for avo- cado, according to a report recently detailed in a medical journal.
The unusual story begins with a woman in her late 60s who attended a wed- ding. At the nup- tials, the woman, who was not identi- fied in the report published
in BMJ Case Reports, ate a “large amount” of what she thought was avocado dip — only to very quickly realize it was actually wasabi paste,
a Japanese horseradish.
The woman then felt a “sud- den pressure” in her chest before the feeling moved down to her
arms, according to IFL Science, which cited the report. The sen- sation lasted for the next few hours, though the woman
chose to stay at the wedding.
By the next morning, howev- er, she awoke feeling “uncom- fortable and weak” and decided to see a doctor, report- ed IFL Science.
Doctors per- formed an elec- trocardiogram (ECG), which revealed the
woman was suf- fering
from takotsubo cardiomyopathy, colloquially known as “bro- ken heart syn- drome." The Mayo Clinic defines the con- dition as a "tem- porary disruption of [the] heart's normal pumping function in one area of the heart."
It's typically trig- gered by extreme emo- tional or physi- cal stress, such as the death of a loved one or a car accident. Most people who experience broken heart syndrome are 50 years old or older.
In the report, the researchers claim the
woman’s broken heart syndrome case is the first to be spurred by “food consump- tion alone,” IFL Science reports. In the past, other food-relat- ed cases of bro- ken heart syn- drome were linked to ana- phylaxis, a severe allergic reaction.
"To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of takot- subo cardiomy- opathy triggered by wasabi con- sumption," the researchers wrote, according to IFL Science, which added the woman recov- ered after she was treated with angiotensin-con- verting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors and beta-block- ers.
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