Extreme sharpness: woman confuses wasabi with avocado - and suffers Broken Heart Syndrome

The 60-year-old does not save as she serves at the wedding buffet on the green paste. She is convinced that she has an avocado cream. She is also generous when she fills her spoon and pushes it into her mouth. Then, however, shows the error. Instead of avocado, the woman caught wasabi, an extremely spicy paste.

"Maybe she was so distracted by the wedding party that it came to the confusion," writes Alona Finkel-Oron from the Medical Center at Israel's Rokoa University on SPIEGEL request. The environment may also explain why the woman does not simply spit out the paste, but swallows it down when it starts to burn.

Wild the wasabi plant grows only in Japan and on a Russian island. In order to fend off voracious insects and other enemies, it has developed in the course of evolution various mustard oils, which also activate pain receptors in humans. In contrast to chillies, which contain capsaicin and burn directly in the mouth, wasabi mustard oils are somewhat delayed in the throat and nose, where their volatile components rise.

For women, however, the response goes far beyond burning. A few minutes after swallowing, she feels a pressure on her chest that radiates into her arms. The 60-year-old does not want to leave the wedding, but in the following hours, the unpleasant feeling also subsides. However, when she feels weak and uncomfortable the next morning, she goes to the doctor.

Too many stress hormones

The results of the investigations are clear, as the attending physician Finkel-Oron and her colleagues report in the journal "BMJ Case Report". Due to the extreme acuity, the woman has suffered a so-called Tako-Tsubo cardiomyopathy, better known as Broken Heart Syndrome or Stress Cardiomyopathy.

The symptoms are similar to those of a heart attack, the heart cramps, there is shortness of breath and the chest feels tight. But the cause is not a closed vessel, but an excess of stress hormones, which lead to temporary circulatory disorders of the heart muscle. The phenomenon is actually the result of extreme emotions. It can be triggered by lovesickness, but also by great joy. Above all, older women are affected.

The current case was the first in which sharpness - and wasabi in particular - was documented as the cause of the broken heart syndrome, the Israeli doctors write in their report. Otherwise, stress cardiomyopathy is a fairly new field of research. The fact that the body can respond to emotions in this way is only known to medical professionals since the 1990s.

BMJ

Left ventricle of the woman: Typical of the Broken Heart syndrome is that the left ventricle is pointed at the end and inflated

In contrast to a heart attack, in the case of Broken Heart Syndrome, the body generally recovers completely within six weeks, but in the worst case, the syndrome can even be fatal. Complications occur, for example, when fluid builds up in the lungs due to the impaired circulation.

The doctors observe the doctors two days after the avocado error still clear complaints, her left ventricle pumps too little blood in the body. She must take various medications - beta blockers, ACE inhibitors and aldosterone antagonists - and for further treatment in a rehab center. Four weeks later, her heart is healthy again.

"It is important to emphasize that the wasabi ingredients have been found to be healthy in many studies, such as protecting the nerves," the doctors write. There are also indications of an antioxidant and anti-cancer effect. However, according to the doctors, lower wasabi doses were used in the experiments. The amount the woman consumed was just too big.

Chili causes thunderclap headache

The woman is not the first person in whom extreme acuity has upset the body's mechanisms. In 2018, US physicians also described in the journal "BMJ Case Reports" the case of a 34-year-old, who developed an explosive, intense headache after consuming a chili pepper, which is considered the harshest in the world.

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Thunderbolt headache First super hot chili, then emergency room

Subsequent investigations showed that blood vessels in his brain had narrowed so much that brain regions were no longer optimally supplied with blood. This man recovered completely. In 2012, doctors also described the case of a 25-year-old who had a heart attack after taking cayenne pepper tablets.

However, chilies and the capsaicin they contain are safe in usual quantities, as are wasabi and its mustard oils. Anyone who consumes them should just listen to his body - and stop when it's not just tickling, it hurts.