Warning over little-known condition which causes blood-filled blisters in your mouth as man gets struck down by eating FRIED FOOD
- EXCLUSIVE: The 50-year-old from Japan suffered from bleeding in the throat
- ABH has no known one cause but can also be triggered by dental treatment
For years we have been told that eating too much fried food is a sure-fire recipe for a heart attack.
But experts are now warning an unhealthy diet could trigger a ‘rare and underreported’ condition where blood-filled blisters develop in the mouth.
That is 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 triggered by consuming hot food and drinks, they warned in a medical journal.
Dental treatments, such as fillings, crowns or periodontal therapy — which involves cleaning above and below the gum line — are also triggers.
Known medically as Angina bullosa haemorrhagica (ABH), it has no known one cause, medics wrote in a medical journal. Yet more than half of cases seen are thought to be caused by minor trauma caused by hot food and drinks, dental treatments including fillings and crowns or periodontal therapy, which involves cleaning above and below the gum line to tackle gum disease
Doctors at Chiba University Hospital in Japan said that the unidentified man attended hospital complaining of bleeding in the mouth.
He told medics that he had suffered from bleeding in his throat for 20 years whenever he ate fried foods, such as pork cutlets.
In an effort to stop the bleeding re-occurring, he had barred himself from eating the unhealthy diet.
He confessed to medics that the new bleed had started shortly after eating grilled dumplings for lunch.
Doctors discovered an abnormal collection of blood measuring 17mm in width and 18mm in height 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 bleed may be caused by Von Willebrand disease, a common inherited condition that can make you bleed more easily than normal, for example through frequent or long-lasting nosebleeds or heavy or bleeding from cuts.
It does not however trigger blood blisters.
The repeated occurrence of the bleeds led doctors instead to diagnose ABH.
ABH bleeding typically resolves within a day, while the blisters normally take a week to heal without scarring.
The man’s bleeding had stopped within one day, doctors noted.
Most blisters, which can range from four up to 30mm in width, also heal spontaneously and do not require treatment.
Gargling a 0.12 per cent or 0.25 per cent strength germicidal mouthwash — which slashes the amount of bacteria in the mouth — can sometimes prevent secondary infection, medics said.
Writing in the European Journal of Case Reports in Internal Medicine, they warned that, in rare cases, a build up of blood blisters can block the airways and require surgery.
But the medics said the patient ‘has not relapsed’ in more than a year since his hospital visit by avoiding fried food.
Research published in March by medics in Iran, which reviewed 45 studies on the causes of ABH, showed ‘eating trauma’ was most common trigger.
‘Most notably, physical or chemical trauma, mainly while eating hard, hot, and crispy food, is the most affirmed etiology for this entity,’ they wrote.
The blood blisters can develop at any age, but is most common in middle age with people aged 55.