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(photo Source: healthline) Writing | Su Chengyu

Since 1995, a mysterious disease has occurred in Muzaffarpur, Bihar, India, around May and June every year, with many children suffering from fever, convulsions, delirium and other symptoms.

In May 2014, hundreds of local children were hospitalized with symptoms of the disease, locally known as "gold foil disease", while 122 of the 390 people treated died.

In mid-June 2019, more than 100 children died of acute brain inflammation syndrome in India, which once again linked the annual deaths of children in North India after eating lychees on an empty stomach.

Scientists are investigating in the Muzaffarpur region of India to find out the causes and risk factors of the disease.

At first, Indian pediatrician Jacob John suspected that the culprit was a local plant called "smelly grass".

However, Jacob John quickly overturned this hypothesis. Because he and his colleague Mukul Das (Mukul Das) noticed that the regions where the strange disease broke out-India and Bangladesh, as well as Vietnam-had one thing in common: they were all the main producing areas of litchi. Litchi is one of the subtropical fruits with high sugar and protein content.

They found that up to 62% of the 327 patients who met the case definition in Muzaffarpur, India's largest litchi growing region, had hypoglycemia between late May and mid-July 2014.

Image source: in addition, metabolites of hypoglycine An and MCPG were found in urine examination, and these two metabolites not only happened to hinder the action of glycogenesis (Gluconeogenesis) and β-oxidation of fatty acids (β-oxidation), but also caused hypoglycemia symptoms, acidosis and more likely to lead to acute brain edema, convulsions and coma.

In the past, the ingredient of "Jamaican vomiting" caused by eating immature West African litchi fruit in the 1950s was also associated with hypoglycine A.

But why do most of these incidents happen to children? Scientists have a deep understanding of the children's parents' claims that these children often go to the surrounding orchards to collect lychees that cannot be sold on the ground, and by the time they get home in the evening, they are already full and skip dinner. As they are all suffering from malnutrition and are in urgent need of food to satisfy their hunger, they eat these fallen fruits, whether ripe or not.

Pixabay for children with limited liver sugar storage, skipping dinner may lead to nocturnal hypoglycemia. Although under normal circumstances, the body can produce glucose to provide energy through metabolism, if the child does not eat and eats too much lychee, subglycine An and MCPG can interfere with fatty acid metabolism and glucose synthesis, leading to acute hypoglycemia and brain damage.

According to reports, a considerable number of sick children will eat 1-2 kilograms of litchi continuously, while other foods will be halved or even not eaten. Although the liver stores some glycogen for a rainy day, it cannot withstand such consumption.

As a result, children who skip dinner in this case are twice as likely to develop lychee disease as children who eat dinner. In India, many sick children are born in poverty. Malnutrition is the norm and cannot afford to eat lychees on an empty stomach.

In addition, scientists have found that eating lychees not only on an empty stomach can cause litchi disease, but also has a similar risk of eating immature lychees. After sampling a small amount of litchi fruits, it was found that the contents of hypoglycine An and MCPG in immature litchi were almost twice as high as those in mature litchi. The difference in the concentration of glycine An in immature West African litchi fruit is as high as 20 times.

But at the end of the study, it was also said that although such acute toxic encephalopathy was associated with hypoglycine An and MCPG in litchi, it was also associated with children skipping dinner. Therefore, it is also suggested that we should not only reduce the amount of lychees consumed by children, but also avoid eating large amounts of lychees on an empty stomach.

Other studies have found that the total sugar content of litchi produced in the disease area (9.46%) is significantly lower than that in the non-disease area (14.31%), and there is a significant difference between the two. This difference may be related to the varieties of litchi.

For ordinary consumers, the probability of eating "litchi disease" is still very small. Of course, to be on the safe side, it is recommended that you try not to eat a lot of lychees on an empty stomach, especially not because you are not hungry. In case there are suspected symptoms of hypoglycemia, there is no need to worry, you should see a doctor in time, do not delay. As long as you are not a critically ill patient, you can get better quickly by replenishing glucose quickly.

Cover source: wiki

references

Https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(17)30035-9/fulltext

This article is from the official Wechat account: bring Science Home (ID:steamforkids), author: everything.

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