Eating lychee on an empty stomach has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of children in India, reports The Lancet. Lychee is a fruit that has enjoyed a good reputation for centuries. Chinese emperors eagerly consumed it, and modern experts appreciate the high content of vitamin C, antiatherosclerotic and anti-cancer properties.
For over 20 years, apparently healthy children in the Indian state of Bihar, bordering Nepal, have convulsed and lost consciousness. Almost half of them died – about a hundred a year. Research by scientists from the USA and India suggests that the cause of hundreds of deaths could be poisoning by eating lychees on an empty stomach.
Most of the victims came from areas where most Indian lychees are grown. Poor children ate the fruit that fell to the ground in orchards. While lychees contain a lot of sugar, they also contain toxins that inhibit the body’s ability to produce glucose. In young children who did not eat dinner, glucose levels were already low. At night they would wake up screaming, then tremble and lose consciousness. Life-threatening brain swelling appeared.
Researchers studying sick children admitted to a hospital in Muzaffarpur (Bihar) from May to July 2014 saw a similarity with an outbreak of a similar disease in the Caribbean. Also in local children there was brain swelling and convulsions. In the Caribbean, the culprit was the ackee fruit, which contains hypoglycin, a toxin that inhibits the body’s production of glucose. As it turned out, lychee related to blig, also contains hypoglycine.
To prevent further illnesses, Bihar’s health officials advised parents to make sure their child is having dinner and limit their consumption of lychee. In case of typical symptoms, it is necessary to treat as for hypoglycaemia – give a glucose injection promptly.
Since the introduction of the new recommendations, the number of reported cases of lychee poisoning has fallen from several hundred to around 50 per year.