4 Strange Ways Everyday Foods Can Affect Your Brain

A follow-up study confirmed the results, and then another test fed cured meat ingredients to rats to induce hyperactivity. Hyperactivity is of course not the same as mania, but we're talking about rats here, and sometimes close is as good as you can get. So salami makes hyper rats, if you're curious. Please use this information responsibly.

Again, there's no proven cause and effect here yet. All they have is the data showing a connection. So if this is something you've experienced in your life, hey, maybe ask a doctor about it. All I can say is that if it turns out there is indeed a link between beef jerky and mania, then all of those old Slim Jim ads are going to take on a dark undertone.

Just to be clear from the get-go, no one is saying gluten causes or prevents schizophrenia. But they are saying that a doctor noticed that a bizarrely high number of people hospitalized with schizophrenia also had a history of celiac disease as children. How high? 50-100 times what you'd expect. And doctors treating patients for celiac disease observed that their patients were about 10 times more likely to be schizophrenic as the general population. Wait, does this mean the gluten screwed up both their brain and guts? Or that avoiding gluten did it?

Well, other studies have shown that patients diagnosed with schizophrenia and other psychiatric conditions tend to have lower levels of an enzyme that breaks down gluten in the body. This can, I guess, lead to toxic levels of French bread in your brain. Other research shows that if patients removed gluten from their diets, symptoms associated with schizophrenia improved.

Doctors, who foolishly insist on "evidence" before making bold claims that can earn them sweet internet traffic, say we need tons more studies before anyone even understands why this link exists or what should be done about it. Still, expect plenty of "gluten causes schizophrenia" memes on Facebook. Probably with minions on them or something.

Drastically overdosing on energy drinks to the point where you get a brain hemorrhage is a pretty new phenomenon. In 2016, there was a case study of the "first" instance of this happening. A 57-year-old man had an energy drink before doing yard work. 15 minutes later, he had an intracranial bleed and went to the hospital. Doctors attributed this to the fact that what he drank was basically a witch's brew of god knows what, packed with various chemicals and herbal supplements that no one has ever bothered to study fully. That means some energy drinks are kind of like downing a bunch of coffee and a handful of pills you found in a pharmacy dumpster. Also, "Pharmacy Dumpster" would be a decent name for an energy drink.

The next year, there was a widely reported story of a man who suffered such a severe brain hemorrhage that part of his skull had to be removed during a surgery to repair the damage, and his wife said doctors blamed the event on his energy drink consumption. Then in 2018, a man in the UK tore through 25 cans of Monster and Red Bull in the span of six hours while running a karaoke night. His severe caffeine overdose resulted in a brain hemorrhage, and it's likely the karaoke didn't help.

Now, considering how all of society functions on energy drinks, if they were truly dangerous in moderation, then the streets would be piled with corpses. Still, keep in mind that any beverage that intentionally comes with medical side effects (such as "alertness") also comes with the possibility of overdose. That's actually what separates it from a placebo -- too much of it will absolutely fuck you up. So pay attention to how much you're ingesting, and if you feel weird after drinking energy drinks (or anything else), talk to a goddamned doctor already.

If you're not familiar with MAOIs, it stands for monoamine oxidase inhibitor, which should totally clear it up. These were the first mass-marketed antidepressant medications, used to treat depression, bipolar disorder, PTSD, and other psychiatric conditions. They've since fallen out of favor for two reasons (though they're still used for conditions like migraines and bulimia). For one, there are now much more effective antidepressants on the market. For two, MAOIs reacted badly with damn near everything. Not just other medications or alcohol, but food too. Lots of food, in fact -- anything high in tyramine.

That includes aged cheese, beer, chocolate, dried fruit, eggplant, spinach, tomato, tofu, and about a million other things. Incidentally, three more things that you can't eat on MAOIs are liver, fava beans, and Chianti. So when Hannibal Lecter said that famous line in Silence Of The Lambs, he was actually making an inside joke. He was saying he was off his medication, because otherwise he could have straight up died eating that meal. Eating these foods with MAOIs could lead to hypertensive crises, which can include vomiting, migraines, nosebleeds, stroke, and even death.

See? You shouldn't get your health advice from internet comedy articles. You should get it from serial killer movies.

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