It’s a story that could have ended in tragedy: on July 17, 2017, a British father buys a box of fresh cherries in a supermarket. For some reason (lazy about pitting, maybe?) The 28-year-old man swallows the pits.
Bad idea: barely 10 minutes later, the Briton begins to feel extremely tired, to have a headache and to have a fever … His partner, worried, then alerts the emergency services and the father is taken away. in emergency hospital. After several examinations, the emergency services concluded that there was poisoning: the patient’s body was contaminated with hydrogen cyanide, a deadly poison.
Nothing surprising in that: cherry pits (like apple seeds, bitter almonds, peach pits, apricot kernels …) contain amygdalin. When ingested, this substance produces hydrogen cyanide (or hydrocyanic acid), which can cause headache, dizziness, hypotension, seizures and even cardiac arrest.
Soon prevention messages on boxes of cherries?
Fortunately, the risk is very low: to reach the lethal dose (between 1 mg and 5 mg per kilogram of body weight), you have to eat several dozen apricot kernels and at least 50 cherry kernels.
The story ends well for the 28-year-old Briton: after receiving treatment, he was able to return home. However, with one criticism: according to the man, the packaging of the cherries made no mention of the danger, so he asked that prevention messages be written on the packages of cherries … A little bad faith?
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