Mad honey disease...

[Mr T-Bone]

Ok, I think I've heard it all now....:roll:  :roll:  :roll:  :roll:  :roll:

Scientists warn of 'mad honey disease'
By Roger Dobson
Published: 10 September 2006


Mad honey disease is among the rarest afflictions in the world, but it appears to be on the increase.

Only 58 cases have been reported worldwide, but eight people were treated in 2005 alone.

The trend towards eating more natural products may be driving a rise in cases of the disease, whose symptoms can include convulsions, low blood pressure, fainting and temporary heart problems, according to a new report.

"Mad honey disease has the potential to cause death if untreated," say the researchers. "Because of the increasing preference for natural products, intoxication induced by consumption of honey will increase in the future."

Just a spoonful of the wrong honey can cause problems, according to researchers, who report their findings this week in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine.

Mad honey poisoning is most prevalent in honey from the Black Sea region of Turkey. Compounds called grayanotoxins, found in the nectar of rhododendrons, mountain laurels and azaleas, are thought to be responsible for the disease. Though harmless to bees, they are psychoactive and poisonous to humans. Affected honey is said to have a very bitter taste.

Mad honey disease is among the rarest afflictions in the world, but it appears to be on the increase.

Only 58 cases have been reported worldwide, but eight people were treated in 2005 alone.

The trend towards eating more natural products may be driving a rise in cases of the disease, whose symptoms can include convulsions, low blood pressure, fainting and temporary heart problems, according to a new report.

"Mad honey disease has the potential to cause death if untreated," say the researchers. "Because of the increasing preference for natural products, intoxication induced by consumption of honey will increase in the future."

Just a spoonful of the wrong honey can cause problems, according to researchers, who report their findings this week in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine.

Mad honey poisoning is most prevalent in honey from the Black Sea region of Turkey. Compounds called grayanotoxins, found in the nectar of rhododendrons, mountain laurels and azaleas, are thought to be responsible for the disease. Though harmless to bees, they are psychoactive and poisonous to humans. Affected honey is said to have a very bitter taste.

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/hea...cle1433411.ece

[fcderosa]

Actually, nectar from both rhododendrons, and mountain laurel contain neurotoxins that can and do affect honey.  A spoon full of either can really mess up or even kill a person.  As far as calling it "mad honey disease", how can you classify what is in effect a poisoning to a disease?
 
The media. :?

  I once read an article about how a group of sportsman participated in a skeet shoot citing how hundreds of pigeons were shot.  How unsportsman like as shooters stood there and shot while the defenseless pigeons were being released in ones and twos.  Blood and carnage were everywhere as the pigeons were shot in pursuit of this senseless sport.  

[denart]

I have heard of plants that can cause problems with honey, but this is the first time I have heard Azaleas mentioned. There should be lots of sick people in my neck of the wood. Azaleas are every where here. There is even a senic route marked on some tourist maps indicating " the azalea trail" towns strung togather along the highway that are famous for the spring azalea color. ( N E Texas )

Shooting Pidgeons.......many years ago, when I was a teenager, and I stress many. I was hired to work at a big gathering, lots of food and drink, and good ol boys. The only "common people" there were those working the party. The main event was shooting pidgeons, it was my job to release them. At the time it was great fun...now I couldn't be hired to do such a thing.

I used to hunt a lot, but if I shot it, I ate it. Dove hunting was a favorite for me. I can't count the time I have shot a dove, and its mate came back to try and help it, and shot it too.  Doves mate for life. Everytime I see a solitary dove it remindes me of this.  Hence the phrase "lonesome dove"

Dennis

[Michael Bush]

STOP EATING ANYTHING NATURAL IT MIGHT KILL YOU!!!!!! ;)

They failed to mention all those cases were in the middle east and on the Black and Caspian sea, of course...

[Jerrymac]

Use to be in pest control and poisoned a lot of pidgeons on roof tops of businesses. Never shot any. Nasty birds. Breed like mice. Shoot away I sure don't care.

[Mici]

heh, when you go to Venice you have to be AT LEAST as good as NEO!! to dodge pigeon droppings, i made it out clean 8)
anyway, you can buy food for them, for ridiculosly high prices, they say it contains contraception- bull poop.
don't eat pork, they've invented pig plauge
don't eat poultry, they've invented bird flue
don't eat cattle meat,-BSE
and so on and so on

[Michael Bush]

8 people were treated for Mad Honey in one year.... worldwide... wow.  50,000 people die in automobile accidents every year in JUST the US.

I better quit eating honey...

[Brian D. Bray]

>>Nasty birds. Breed like mice.

I disagree.  A pigeon has more meat on its breast, for its size, than a turkey.  They are all breast meat, heart, and gizzard.  That's the three parts I eat and has 80% of the meat on the bird.  
Pigeon marinated with your favorite sauce is dddeelicious!  I eat those that don't make the cut for racing.

Don't forget to stop eating eggs due to salmomela, or pork because of hookworm, or honey due to mad honey etc., etc., etc.
If we listen to the experts and ate only what was "safe to eat" we would starve to death.  Fear can make fools of us all, anything done to excess is bad for us. How many times have you eaten yourself sick?

[Jerrymac]

yes I knew pigions were good eating being related to the dove, never ate one myself. But I also use to work on the billboards. The pigions would really make a mess of the places you had to climb up and down in. Really bad if it were back to back signs and you had to climb up between them. On the roofs they plugged up AC units with their nest and sh... and just really was nasty. The nesting area of many pigions is just nasty.
I don't care who you are, that's just nasty right there. Get'er done.

[Brian D. Bray]

Jeerymac,

Pigeon is the "Olde English" name for dove.  Yes, they can be messy.  Maintaining their living quarters means cleaning every couple of weeks but I use a floor very much like a SBB with a liter tray--pull the tray and dump it in the compost pile.  The perches and nest boxes take a little scraping.  

Here again the most common ailment affecting pigeons is cocciddiocis, does that mean not to eat pigeons too?

I'll eat my home grown eggs, chickens, pigeons, and goats milk and believe I'll be healthier because of it.  the scientists can eat their irradiated foods and glow in the casket after they die.

[mat]

Here in Massachusetts almost each house has rhododendrons and azalias in the garden, but I have never seen bees working on it. When they bloom there are plenty much better plants for bees, so I dont thing it is a problem. But bumblebees love them. Avoid bumblebee honey

[TapStoneBees]

Knowing a bit more about gardening than bees.... it is pretty safe to say.

Through out the US and abroad there is an abundance of plants that create toxins to humans, and not to insects or animals.

Yes, plants mentioned  here are toxic, though when foraging for nectar and pollen bees generally have a broader selection of items to choose from here in the States.
Remember bees fly up to 2 miles, but if all that is around for 2 miles because of the climate, and the airid conditions are plants that create toxic residuse for humans.... one can only suspect, that yes it would be passed into the honey.  

However in our geographic locations, here in the US  even with Mountain Laurel, Rhododendrons, Azaleas, Poinsetta, Nicotina, Trumpet flower, and Oleander,  all being in North America , our Bees have many many other varietys of  things to forage on as well.  This is what works to keep our honey from making one MAD!!!

[Scadsobees]

...And here I thought that my episodes of Mad Honey Disease were brought on by me saying the wrong things at the wrong time to my wife!!!!

and to think that all along it has been from eating honey!!!  She'll be so happy to hear about this and the fact that those pants make her butt look too big!!!!

[bassman1977]

Here in Massachusetts almost each house has rhododendrons and azalias in the garden, but I have never seen bees working on it. When they bloom there are plenty much better plants for bees, so I dont thing it is a problem. But bumblebees love them. Avoid bumblebee honey

I noticed this too and was surprised to find the honey bees didn't want any part of it.  I did notice the bumblebees on it.  Let them go mad.

[BEE C]

A friend of mine was told while hiking in nepal not to even smell this certain flower (a Rhodo species) as it was poisonous.  Interesting, now that I think about it, I heckled her relentlessly about it...the Rhodo is the national flower of Nepal I believe too...I noticed there are enough other species of flower going when the Rhodos here bloom, but I still have a winter project of killing as many local rhodos as possible.... :twisted:

[Brian D. Bray]

The Rhododendron is the State flower of Washington.  The honey bees don't work it if there's anything else available.  It seems to be classified as a flower of last resort by the bees.

[Eshu]

Around New Mexico the bees collect a lot of Datura (jimson weed) pollen which is a hallucinogen/neurotoxin.  They probably store it away in special cells in the hive and break it out for special late night parties.   :lol:

[SUEBEE]

I once drank some Cider that had turned slimey and threw up--guess I better stay away from apples.

[Scadsobees]

"some Cider that had turned slimey and threw up"

You really want to stay away from cider that throws up.  What a mess!  I once had some mead that threw up when I tried to feed it sugar.