- Title
- ‘Vitamin B17’: Killing more than cancer
- Creator
- Berling, Ingrid; Brown, Jared; Toy, Brendan
- Relation
- Emergency Medicine Australasia Vol. 36, Issue 4, p. 650-651
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1742-6723.14450
- Publisher
- John Wiley & Sons
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2024
- Description
- Objective: Vitamin B17 tablets are sold (online) as an alternative cancer therapy medication. Its use however is not benign, given that it is metabolised into hydrogen cyanide. We aimed to measure the number of calls received by the New South Wales Poisons Information Centre (NSW PIC) regarding Amygdalin exposures. Methods: A retrospective review of all amygdalin/cyanogenic glycoside product ingestion exposure calls to NSW PIC between 2015 and 2022. Results: There were 120 unique exposure calls. Eighty-two (68%) were regarding minor exposures, with the remaining 38 (32%) of calls involving patients who had either a signifcant history or symptoms to prompt referral to hospital or were already seeking advice from a treating hospital clinican. Conclusion: There is a significant burden of concern generated from the misuse of cyanogenic glycoside products for cancer prevention and treatment, which can result in hospital admission carrying significant health risk and expenditure.
- Subject
- amygdalin; B17 vitamin; cyanide poisoning; cancer therapy medication; SDG 3; Sustainable Development Goals
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1509141
- Identifier
- uon:56216
- Identifier
- ISSN:1742-6731
- Rights
- © 2024 The Author(s). Emergency Medicine Australasia published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd on behalf of Australasian College for Emergency Medicine. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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