While mad honey may appeal to curious minds and adventurers, mad honey consumption can lead to a condition known as mad honey poisoning, characterized by nausea, vomiting, dizziness, blurred vision and low blood pressure.
In rare cases, consumption of too much mad honey can even result in more severe effects, including cardiac problems and temporary paralysis.
Mad honey poisoning is essentially grayanotoxin poisoning. When eating mad honey, a person introduces grayanotoxin into their bloodstream. At higher doses, this toxin interferes with voltage-gated sodium channels in the body, which normally play a crucial role in the transmission of nerve impulses and the regulation of muscle contractions.
By binding to sodium channels, grayanotoxin disrupts these functions, leading to alterations in membrane permeability and the flow of sodium ions across cell membranes.
In the heart, this interference with sodium channels can result in rhythm disorders, such as bundle branch block, where the electrical signals in the heart’s conduction system are delayed or blocked.
A person’s body might experience transient ST segment elevation — a temporary abnormality observed on an electrocardiogram (EKG) — or nodal rhythm, an abnormal heart rhythm originating from the atrioventricular (AV) node, which regulates the timing of electrical impulses in the heart.
While grayanotoxin poisoning is rarely fatal, it can cause significant discomfort.
