A man’s death from cardiac arrest has been linked to his penchant for black licorice.
The unnamed 54-year-old construction worker, who lived in Massachusetts, had been eating “several packages” of candy a day.
Three weeks before his death, he had switched to black licorice.
But he had no history of chest pain, dyspnea, symptoms of heart failure or dysrhythmia, his doctors explained in the New England Journal of Medicine.
He had been in a normal state of health when he went into cardiac arrest at a fast food restaurant.
Dr. Andrew L. Lundquist said the man’s consumption of licorice appears to have caused his hypokalemia (low potassium levels).
Glycyrrhizic acid in the candy was to blame, the report explains.
Dr. Elazer R. Edelman said the acid has previously been shown to potentially lead to hypertension, hypokalemia, metabolic alkalosis, fatal arrhythmias and renal failure.
He added: “Glycyrrhetinic acid has a long half-life, a large volume of distribution, and extensive enterohepatic recirculation, and hypokalemia may take 1 to 2 weeks to resolve.
“Normalization of the renin–aldosterone axis and blood pressure can take up to several months. As such, the devastating consequences after cardiac arrest will probably dominate long after the candy is cleared.”
