Teen’s death after eating a single chip highlights risks of ultra-spicy foods | Hacker News Reader

Teen’s death after eating a single chip highlights risks of ultra-spicy foods

arstechnica.com

38 pointslisper47 comments

> The Paqui chip was seasoned with the Carolina Reaper pepper, the current hottest pepper in the world, and the Naga Viper pepper, which was the reigning hottest pepper in 2011 but is now merely among the top 10.

Apparently the Carolina Reaper has a capsaicin content of around 100mg/g [1] -- and each one weighs around 5 grams. 500mg capsaicin is a hell of a lot to take in a year, let alone in a sitting, and can certainly have systemic pharmacological effects via TRPV1 receptor activation.

Resiniferatoxin is a more potent TRPV1 activator than capsaicin -- and, as its name implies, it is dangerously toxic.

Your regular jalapeno pepper has a capsaicin content of 0.22mg/g.

I don't know how much capsaicin is in the chip, but it certainly seems to have been an unsafe amount.

[1]-https://mendelnet.cz/pdfs/mnt/2017/01/96.pdf

100mg/g is 0.1g/g meaning 10% of whatever weight. That actually seem achievement of just what can be bred in a plant. Even if that is dry weight or something else getting plant to that level of something mostly useless for it is mind boggling.

Teens do dumb things, this is nothing new.

What gets me here is that some company produced these chips and encouraged the challenge. I hope the company, and its founders, are held liable for the medical costs of all the teens who wound up in the hospital. And criminally liable for the death they caused

How does a product like that get FDA approval and is just sold to anyone at a store? Even alcohol, which is safe in comparison, requires customers to show ID

Food operates on a default-allow system? Like if you create a new recipe for applie pie that contains ginger and just a hint of lemongrass, it's not like you need a special permission to sell that. Just need a general purpose permission to sell food.

There is no FDA approval process for food or food products. Dietary supplements, for example, are considered food products. In fact, The FDA has to depend on the federal trade commission whenever it wants to force something.

> And criminally liable for the death they caused

Pump the brakes a little. The article seems to accept that the chip is to blame, then right at the very end, burying the lede:

> Harris Wolobah's cause of death is not yet determined; it's not certain if the chip is to blame. An autopsy will be conducted, but the results could take up to 12 weeks, according to the Massachusetts Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.

That's a pretty big caveat.

The source/other articles [1][2][3] mention this particular chip has sent multiple other students to the hospital before. I mean, it’s _possible_ they all had some unrelated medical condition trigger/were secretly mainlining heroin/etc at the same time they ate the chip, but is it probable? [1] https://archive.md/2CEum

[2] https://www.ketk.com/news/local-news/tyler-isd-one-chip-chal...

[3] https://amp.sacbee.com/news/nation-world/national/article257...

That wasn't the end of the article. If you keep reading, you'll see references to several prior cases of peppers having induced (or at any rate being linked to) heart and brain problems in others.

Also, maybe better regulate so that products that are lethal even if the consumer has no medical problems can’t be sold as snacks over the counter like this.

They could have died from shock, just like I suspect a few people died of shock when having breathing difficulties thinking they had covid.

Shock is a very nasty mind over matter condition.

> Shock is a very nasty mind over matter condition.

"Shock" as you're using it is extremely ambiguous. Perhaps you should define your terms.

You are clearly not referring to the class of medical emergencies known as circulatory shock.

Perhaps your comments refer to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acute_stress_disorder which is psychological, but no medical doctor will refer to this as "shock" without qualifying it.

Too much calcium amplifying the effects of too much adrenaline that causes problems in the body and mind, seen with things like a higher heart rate, as well as panic attacks.

You are literally not describing any type of medical shock whatsoever. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_(circulatory)

I do not doubt that yours is a real condition, but it is not called "shock" in medical terminology, so please stop calling it that.

People can go into shock and die.

"Shock may result from trauma, heatstroke, blood loss or an allergic reaction. It also may result from severe infection, poisoning, severe burns or other causes. When a person is in shock, their organs don't get enough blood or oxygen. If shock is not treated, it can lead to permanent organ damage or even death."

https://www.mayoclinic.org/first-aid/first-aid-shock/basics/....

Yes but you cleverly omitted the introductory part:

> Shock is a critical condition brought on by the sudden drop in blood flow through the body.

You've just linked to a page describing circulatory shock, which is not the thing you described as "too much calcium, too much adrenaline", which is 100% too much bullshit.

I hope some day alcohol and unhealthy food in general is taxed to the amount required to compensate for the health care system costs it causes.

The whole culture around extreme spice is incredibly stupid.

Idiot: "I dare you!"

Intelligent person: "No, I choose not to torture myself."

Other idiot: "What are you, afraid??!"

Intelligent person: "Yes, I don't like pain and discomfort, and I don't see any reason to subject myself to it."

After a certain level of "heat", it's not food and shouldn't be treated as such.

Sometimes doing stupid things is fun. That’s the point.

I don't like pain and discomfort

To be fair, some of my favourite experiences have been preceded by pain, discomfort and risk.

There is a psychological study, where two group of people are asked to do some task for pay. Afterward they have to rate how engaging was the task they have to do. The group who are paid well reported that the work was boring. While the group who are paid little reported that the task was fun and challenging. The task was the same for both groups, but the first one justifies it by having compensation. While the second one by making the task fun or more cynically by deluding themselves that it has some kind of value.

Even cynically, can it be considered delusion? If someone does manage to convince themselves internally that they're having fun, there's no way to externally make that statement false: they really did have fun

thats type 2 fun.

Finally something living up to all that usual marketing...

But more seriously, if we are closing in on actually dangerous products. Maybe limiting the amount of active ingredients included in product might make sense from regulatory viewpoint. For example in some places amount of caffeine in energy drinks is limited.

I was talking with some of my Swedish friends the other day and we were both marveling that it is not a requirement to put caffeine amounts on American beverages. I get that sometimes it can be hard to measure but that is not a problem for energy drinks, and for when it is a problem just slap an (estimated) label on there. Given how powerfully it affects people (an extra 40 mg at the wrong time for me can cause me to be awake for more hours at a time) it feels insane that I have to look this up

Its just as silly there's no nutrition info on most off-the-shelf alcoholic beverage containers.

Like wine, which is apparently full of all kinds of additives.

Like wine, which is apparently full of all kinds of additives.

Some wines are, some aren't. The problem is it requires a lot of research to find out which is which. The fact that the EU has let itself be bullied by the alcohol lobby to not put ingredient and nutritional information on alcoholic beverages is truly shameful.

This seems to be gradually changing in the EU.

Although it's not required, according to [1] 95% of canned or bottled beer sold in the EU now includes the ingredients, 88% the energy, though I can't see a figure for full nutrition labelling.

I see ingredient and energy labels on all the Danish-brewed beers I have, but only the ingredients on a couple of others.

A non-alcoholic beer, of course, has the full nutrition information as it isn't exempt.

https://beerwisdom.eu/

It feels like this lack of proper labeling on alcoholic beverages has also contributed to the explosion of popularity of alcoholic seltzers like white claw in the States as well. The cans are exactly 100 calories (easy to count), say specifically how much carbs they have for keto and have the full nutrition facts label.

Some of the beers in the States have started putting calorie counts on their beer cans when they are specifically marketing to health conscious consumers (Michelob Ultra is an example) but it remains the exception rather than the norm. And why should it be up to the companies? It’s something you’re consuming, why not require nutrition facts like any other food or drink?

I did the One Chip Challenge at Christmas. I did get a bunch of side effects (I got really dizzy, then I felt quite bad and then I threw up) from the level of spice in the chip. Which is strange because I can eat the spiciest foods from restaurants and usually enjoy them.

Here is a good article description of what to expect from the "One chip challenge", I can verify from experience that it is pretty spot on:

https://www.uhhospitals.org/blog/articles/2022/06/spicy-food...

Strangest line from that article

"In its attempt to cool itself down, your body’s temperature will rise"

Not what I would have expected

Ha, yes that’s a funny line. I think what they’re getting at is that in order to reduce your core temperature, your body will move hot blood to your skin and extremities, raising their temperature (and making you feel hot!). This increases the temperature difference to your surroundings and therefore speeds up heat loss.

I have a delicate—err—question: isn't that level of spice consumption unpleasant on the way out? Maybe I've just heard too many Taco Bell jokes but there it is.

I threw up much of it and it was a little spicy on the way out but it wasn’t that bad compared to eating it. Also I do not remember too much discomfort out the other end related to spice. But I generally felt nauseous and my stomach hurt in general. And once it was out I felt better.

The hot pepper linked to teen's death can cause arteries in the brain to spasm.

Life is chemistry.

At the risk of having some fool conclude we should regulate hot peppers as a drug: Capsaicin is an active ingredient in some topical pain meds.

Lack of muscle protein promotes insulin resistance. Sugar takes the edge off pain. Etc.

Enough of anything can kill you, even water. Water poisoning is a thing and people in the military tend to have heard of it and with heat waves sweeping the globe, it's making the radar of more people.

Yeah, capsaicin as a drug should probably not need regulation. As a snack for entertainment, on the other hand.

> Capsaicin is an active ingredient in some topical pain meds.

In the UK, they are prescription only.

There's also a shortage of them so I've been unable to get any for a year.

With all of the dangers of modern processed food, I'm surprised the media chose to focus on a spicy chip.

> it's not certain if the chip is to blame.

Will any actions that result from this also affect use of pepper spray, or just voluntary consumption?

I think this is the best advertisement they could ever get: So spicy, it literally killed one consumer!

That was my first thought: I bet they’re going for $30/bag on eBay now.

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