4 ms·

I’m curious with something as poorly understood as takotsubo, how they are so confident to rush to the conclusion that the wasabi must have triggered. I actuall

I’m curious with something as poorly understood as takotsubo, how they are so confident to rush to the conclusion that the wasabi must have triggered. I actually read the full text and I dont see any discussion on eliminating confounders, and this is just one case. At best this suggests further research is in order, but I’m not convinced anything can be definitively concluded here about the cardiotoxicity of wasabi. Case report or not, what passes for medical research makes me shake my head.

carbocation 7y ago
As a cardiologist, this is also my perception (that you can’t assign causality to wasabi here). Not bad to put out a case report, since if there is truth here, this could spur future knowledge. But it seems unlikely that wasabi was causal compared to, say, the wedding itself.
- mywittyname 7y ago
  Aside: now does a cardiologist become a member of Hacker News?
  - teej 7y ago
    There are a bunch of physicians of different specialties in this community. It’s not uncommon.
    - bookofjoe 7y ago
      Hear, hear: neurosurgical anesthesiologist (retired) here
  - Cerium 7y ago
    Yeah, how can we get more experts from various fields.
  - carbocation 7y ago
    Your question prompted me to realize that I’ve been on HN for over a decade...
  - imtringued 7y ago
    It's right in the domain name: ycombinator
- calf 7y ago
  Doctors are not trained scientists but I imagine the authors took the inductive position that many people at the wedding did not get the heart attack and the woman who ate the wasabi was triggered by it. Come to think of it, triggers are not necessarily the underlying causes, so this particular diction in the abstract and title may be fully apt.
  - carbocation 7y ago
    Yeah, I have no complaints about any part of this publication. This is typical of case reports. If we lived in a world where we could go back and see the true causes, I would bet that the true cause was not the wasabi. If historical evidence says that P(takotsubo|wedding) is low but nonzero and P(takotsubo|wasabi) is virtually zero, then my money is still on the wedding being the cause, even if nobody else at the wedding got takotsubo. (It's not thought to be transmissible as if it were an infectious disease.) Happy to be wrong here. But, like any case report, this case report is interesting (which is why it was published). And if more evidence accumulates that wasabi can lead to stress cardiomyopathy, that would, indeed, be interesting.

carbocation 7y ago

As a cardiologist, this is also my perception (that you can’t assign causality to wasabi here). Not bad to put out a case report, since if there is truth here, this could spur future knowledge. But it seems unlikely that wasabi was causal compared to, say, the wedding itself.

mywittyname 7y ago
Aside: now does a cardiologist become a member of Hacker News?
- teej 7y ago
  There are a bunch of physicians of different specialties in this community. It’s not uncommon.
  - bookofjoe 7y ago
    Hear, hear: neurosurgical anesthesiologist (retired) here
- Cerium 7y ago
  Yeah, how can we get more experts from various fields.
- carbocation 7y ago
  Your question prompted me to realize that I’ve been on HN for over a decade...
- imtringued 7y ago
  It's right in the domain name: ycombinator
calf 7y ago
Doctors are not trained scientists but I imagine the authors took the inductive position that many people at the wedding did not get the heart attack and the woman who ate the wasabi was triggered by it. Come to think of it, triggers are not necessarily the underlying causes, so this particular diction in the abstract and title may be fully apt.
- carbocation 7y ago
  Yeah, I have no complaints about any part of this publication. This is typical of case reports. If we lived in a world where we could go back and see the true causes, I would bet that the true cause was not the wasabi. If historical evidence says that P(takotsubo|wedding) is low but nonzero and P(takotsubo|wasabi) is virtually zero, then my money is still on the wedding being the cause, even if nobody else at the wedding got takotsubo. (It's not thought to be transmissible as if it were an infectious disease.) Happy to be wrong here. But, like any case report, this case report is interesting (which is why it was published). And if more evidence accumulates that wasabi can lead to stress cardiomyopathy, that would, indeed, be interesting.