Man dies after eating a bag of black licorice every day
DOCTORS at Massachusetts General Hospital said the unusual case highlighted the risk of consuming too much glycyrrhizic acid, which is found in black licorice.
He had no history of heart problems. He walked his dog regularly and worked a physically demanding job as a construction worker, according to his doctors.
Then, in January 2019, he collapsed at a McDonald’s and died.
The likely culprit? Black licorice, according to the doctors who treated him and who this week published their findings about the unusual case in TheNewEnglandJournalofMedicine.
The report said the man, an unidentified 54-yearold from Massachusetts, had consumed one to two large bags of black licorice a day for three weeks. That habit caused his potassium levels to drop precipitously, prompting a cardiac arrest, according to the study. He never regained consciousness after his collapse and died about 24 hours after he arrived at Massachusetts General Hospital.
“We almost didn’t believe it when we figured it out,” said Dr. Jacqueline B. Henson, who treated the man while she was a resident at the hospital. “We were all shocked and surprised.”
Aspiring doctors are taught in medical school that black licorice contains glycyrrhizic acid, a plant extract that is often used as a sweetener in candies and other foods and can lead to dangerously low potassium levels if it is consumed in high enough doses. But it is rare to see a case of someone dying as a result of ingesting too much of the candy, Dr. Henson said.
The man in Massachusetts had a poor diet and smoked a pack of cigarettes a day, according to his friends and family, his doctors said. But it was a switch from red to black licorice three weeks before his death that doctors said proved fatal.
Dr. Henson said she interviewed the man’s friends and family members, and doctors ran multiple laboratory tests that confirmed the man’s potassium levels were well below normal.