OMG Digital Magazine OMG Issue 287 14th December 2017 | Page 47

OMG Digital Magazine | 287 | Thursday 14 December 2017 • PAGE 47
Superseed?
Apricot kernels,
touted as cancer
cure, linked
to CYANIDE
POISONING
Catherine Solyom, Montreal Gazette
Brendan Brogan had just returned from a shopping trip
on the Plateau laden with exotic snacks. On a visit to
Montreal from California, he stood in the doorway of his
buddy Mike Guetta’s room, munching away on something
as they discussed the absurdities of the day.
Then Guetta looked up. “Those better not be almonds,”
he said. “You know I’m allergic to those.” “No, no,” Brogan
replied, “I would never do that. These are apricot pits.”
“What?!? Don’t eat those! They’re poisonous!” Brogan
pooh-poohed the warning, arguing the kernels were
organic and he’d bought them at the health food store.
“Look! It’s the superseed of the Hunza people, with
Vitamin B17!”
Then he turned the bag over and read the fine print. His
face went grey: “Caution: Do not consume more than 2-3
kernels per day. Keep out of the reach of children. Pregnant
and nursing women should not consume apricot kernels.
Health Canada warns that eating too many apricot kernels
can lead to acute cyanide poisoning.”
After a quick call to poison control, Brogan rushed to the
nearest emergency room. He had eaten a third of the bag.  
Apricot kernels, like cherry pits and apple seeds, contain
a product called amygdalin, also known as laetrile and
marketed as Vitamin B17.
Bitter apricot kernels — the pits of the pits — are widely
available in Montreal health food stores, including at
Rachelle-Béry branches across the city, where Brogan
bought some. They are gluten-free, pesticide-free, vegan
and organic.
They are also potentially lethal, as Brogan found out.  
The kernels, like cherry pits and apple seeds, contain a
product called amygdalin, also known as laetrile and
marketed as Vitamin B17, though it’s more like an anti-
vitamin.  
When the seeds are chewed and digested, the amygdalin
is converted to cyanide in the stomach. Eat too much of
them — more than three apricot kernels for an adult and
just one kernel for a toddler — and cyanide poisoning can
occur.  
Cyanide cuts off oxygen supply. Symptoms include
headache, dizziness, mental confusion, weakness,
difficulty breathing, abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting,
seizures, coma and, eventually, death.
That’s why Australia, for one, has banned the sale of apricot
kernels. But that didn’t stop a Melbourne man from slowly
poisoning himself by ingesting 17 mg of homemade
apricot kernel extract per day, in the mistaken belief that it
would cure his prostate cancer. When doctors performed
routine surgery on him in September, they found cyanide
levels in his blood that were 25 times the accepted level.  
Germany and the United Kingdom have also restricted the
sale of apricot kernels, after a number of cases of children
hospitalized for cyanide poisoning. In 2011, for example, a
28-month old girl was rushed unconscious to hospital in
Turkey. She died in hospital of acute cyanide poisoning 22
days later. She had eaten 10 kernels.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has prohibited
the sale of apricot kernels if  “intended for use in the cure,
mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease.”  
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency, for its part, issued
a recall and health hazard alert for Our Father’s Farm brand
of apricot kernels in 2009, after a reported case of cyanide
poisoning. Since then the agency has received two more
complaints of illness. Packaging must now carry Health
Canada’s warning