Warning after man dies from eating five-day-old pasta
You may want to rethink your love of leftovers after a 20-year-old man died from eating five-day-old pasta.
A man known as AJ, from Brussels in Belgium, ate leftover spaghetti with tomato sauce that had been left for five days at room temperature, according to research published in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology.
After the meal, AJ became ill, suffering abdominal pain, nausea and diarrhoea.
He drank some water, fell asleep and was found dead the following morning.
An autopsy showed he was killed by food poisoning from a bacteria called bacillus cereus.
You Tube commentator Bernard, who claims to be a Clinical Adjunct Professor from the University of Illinois, has explained AJ’s case via his YouTube channel Chubbyemu.
He explains that AJ had hypoglycaemia, or low blood sugar, due to issues with his liver caused by the pasta.
“Typically, food poisoning just causes stomach inflammation, nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea,” Bernard says.
“It doesn’t typically cause acute liver failure.”
While Bernard explains how the bacteria formed and how AJ’s body broke down, he adds there was a “final link to this case” that doesn’t come from the pasta.
Bernard claims AJ drank a full bottle of stomach medicine to combat his illness after he became sick.
He says the medicine contained bismuth subsalicylate, commonly known as aspirin.
“Aspirin overdoses also result in liver failure,” he says.
Bernard says the aspirin leads to a build up of fatty acid and glucose inside the liver.
“So, adding this medicine overdose to cereulide poisoning resulted in a dual blockade,” he says.
He adds AJ’s case is a “tragic one” and there have been many cases of people eating pasta or leftover noodles but ending up fine.
But Bernard says it’s best to avoid eating food which “smells funny” and that “it’s always better to be safe than sorry”.
In December, Yahoo7 spoke with experts about best to deal with leftover food.
