For years, we’ve been told that eating too much fried food is a surefire recipe for a heart attack.
But experts are now warning that an unhealthy diet can cause a “rare and underreported” condition in which blood-filled blisters form in the mouth.
That’s exactly what happened to a 50-year-old man in Japan, doctors have revealed.
The little-known condition, called angina bullosa haemorrhagica (ABH), can also be caused by consuming hot food and drinks, they warned in a medical journal.
Dental treatments, such as fillings, crowns, or periodontal therapy — which involve cleaning both above and below the gum line — are also triggers.
Known medically as Angina bullosa haemorrhagica (ABH), it has no known cause, doctors wrote in a medical journal. Yet more than half of observed cases are believed to be caused by minor trauma caused by hot food and drink, dental treatments, including fillings and crowns, or periodontal therapy, which involves cleaning above and below the gum line to address gum disease
Doctors at Japan’s Chiba University Hospital said tThe unknown man went to the hospital complaining of bleeding in the mouth.
He told doctors that for 20 years he had suffered from bleeding in his throat whenever he ate fried foods, such as pork chops.
In an effort to stop the re-bleeding, he had banned himself from eating the unhealthy diet.
He confessed to medics that the new bleeding had started shortly after eating grilled dumplings for lunch.
Doctors discovered an abnormal collection of blood 17mm wide and 18mm high on the right side of his pharynx – part of the throat.
But the results of blood tests and blood clotting tests were “within the normal range,” medics noted.
Initially, they thought the bleeding could be caused by Von Willebrand disease, a common hereditary condition that can cause you to bleed faster than usual, for example from frequent or prolonged nosebleeds or severe or bleeding cuts.
However, it does not cause blood blisters.
The repeated occurrence of the bleeding led doctors to diagnose ABH instead.
ABH bleeding usually resolves within a day, while the blisters normally take a week to heal without scarring.
The man’s bleeding had stopped within a day, doctors noted.
Most blisters, which can range from four to 30 mm wide, also heal spontaneously and require no treatment.
Gargling with a 0.12 percent or 0.25 percent germicidal mouthwash — which reduces the amount of bacteria in the mouth — can sometimes prevent secondary infection, medics said.
Write in the European Journal of Case Reports in Internal Medicinethey warned that in rare cases, a buildup of blood blisters can block the airways and require surgery.
But medics said the patient “didn’t relapse” in more than a year since his hospital visit by avoiding fried foods.
Research published in March by medics in Iranreviewing 45 studies on the causes of ABH found that “eating trauma” was the most common trigger.
“In particular, physical or chemical trauma, primarily while eating hard, hot, and crunchy foods, is the most confirmed etiology for this entity,” they wrote.
The blood blisters can appear at any age, but are most common in middle age in people over the age of 55.