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Trick or Treat: Don't Eat Too Much Black Licorice on Halloween, Warns FDA
It's that time of year again when ghoulish children turn up at your door, demanding payment in candy or threatening a sinister trick instead. But if you're keeping a bowl of sweets on stand-by, you might want to leave out the black licorice.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued a warning ahead of Halloween—which it describes as the "biggest candy eating holiday of the year"—urging people not to overdo it on the medicinal-tasting candy or potentially face heart problems.
The problem is caused by glycyrrhizin—a sweetening compound derived from the root of licorice, a low-growing shrub that is found most in Greece, Turkey and Asia. When consumed in large amounts, glycyrrhizin can prompt potassium levels in the body to fall. Low potassium can lead to a variety of health issues, particularly abnormal heart rhythms, but also high blood pressure, swelling, lethargy, and even congestive heart failure.
The FDA warned that, for people 40 years old or over, eating two ounces of black licorice a day for two weeks can result in arrhythmia, or irregular heart rhythm. Potassium levels usually return to normal with no permanent health problems when a person stops eating it, according to the FDA's Linda Katz.
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Also at Business Insider.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday November 01 2017, @06:47PM
Two sides of the same coin.
Potassium (a positive ion) sits inside your nerve cells to help with ionic balance. Upon Sodium (another positive ion's) entry into your nerve cells (as in, fire your muscles including your heart and your arterial linings,) potassium is pushed out to balance out the nerve reaction then potassium re-enters to displace the sodium. Too little Potassium (which has been evacuated by the licorice,) you get heart dysrhythmia because not enough K+ will not allow the Na+ out of the cells after firing so the contracted arterial muscle stays contracted longer - hence upped blood pressure and cardiac dysrhythmia both. Plus other stuff K+ does.
The real fun stuff is both too much and too little potassium (hyperkalemia and hypokalemia) makes bad things happen. The same with the other cationic components of microbiology, Calcium, Sodium, and Magnesium all likewise cause problems if there is too much or too little in your body's fluids.
I didn't know licorice could do that. Damn. I love licorice!
This sig for rent.