Star fruit and kidney

I had tough time explaining to others how a man could slip into coma after consuming ordinary star fruit.

Tang Gon Seang, who has been suffering a kidney ailment was in Shenzhen visiting his son when he passed out on March 29 after eating star fruits and was rushed to the Shenzhen General Hospital where he fell into a coma.

While star fruit sellers will never going to agree with the nephrologist who advised against consumption of star fruit (only if you are a patient with kidney failure), it is a proven fact that star fruit contains neurotoxin that could harm your central nervous system. In normal people, the neurotoxin will be 'processed' by the kidneys and passed into the urine but in those kidney patients will not be able to do this.

Published in 2003, Neto et al. demonstrated the intoxification caused by star fruit in uraemic patients (patients with a toxic condition resulting from kidney disease in which there is retention in the bloodstream of waste products normally excreted in the urine).

The most common symptoms were persistent and intractable hiccups in 30 patients (93.75%), vomiting in 22 (68.7%), variable degrees of disturbed consciousness (mental confusion, psychomotor agitation) in 21 (65.6%), decreased muscle power, limb numbness, paresis, insomnia and paresthesias in 13 (40.6%) and seizures in seven (21.8%). Patients who were promptly treated with haemodialysis, including those with severe intoxication, recovered without sequelae. Patients with severe intoxication who were not treated or treated with peritoneal dialysis did not survive.

You may read the full research paper HERE.