Durian and alcohol – the death mix myth
posted in - Health tips, - Palmdoc |
It’s the durian season again. Now, I’ve also just been asked about this folk lore that one should not eat Durians and drink alcohol at the same time as the combination is “lethal”. In fact this is only one of several weird Customs and Beliefs associated with durians.
Unfortunately the Wikipedia reference to this durian + alcohol mix belief does not work. A search in Pubmed reveals an old paper by Dr. Ogle in 1969 published in the Singapore Medical Journal (Durian and alcohol. A preliminary report. Singapore Med J. 1969 Dec;10(4):288-90) and I don’t have access to the full text of this paper (unless anyone has and is willing to share)
As far as I know, as long as you ingest them in moderation, the durian-alcohol combination is physiologically not possible to cause death. The only scientific proof (level 5 evidence) I have is the fact that Timothy Tiah survived to blog about it 
However, it might be true if you combine durians with alcohol, it could lead to some untoward side effects (similar to that Cure-all drink) – as the Javanese say “durian jatuh sarung naik”
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July 16th, 2008 at 9:15 am
It’s a wonder that he survived. Ha. It’s a dangerous challenge i would say, unless he did it after making some extensive research, which seems quite unlikely.
I remember seeing the similar news some years back, about a beggar had a sudden death on the street, and there was some unfinished durians and a half bottle of liqor beside him.
Palmdoc, what about the saying “prawn plus vit C causing arsenic intoxication?”
July 16th, 2008 at 9:23 am
Er, Snopes is your friend :p
July 16th, 2008 at 9:46 am
I myself had mixed alcohol and durian a couple of times.
Didn’t see any unusual effect at all.
July 16th, 2008 at 10:13 am
looks like timothy’s the asian version of mythbusters here. i think it’s safe to say that it doesn’t kill, but could cause a lot of heatiness right after.
July 17th, 2008 at 1:50 am
I try to find out the information and I can only come up with two. One of it is the study by the singaporean researcher. Another is done by a thai researcher :Techapaitoon S. and Sim M.K.”Alleged toxicity of durian and alcohol”. ASIAN J.MED.
Volume 9, Issue 5, 1973, Pages 158-159. I had tried to open both these studies but there is no abstract or any information whatsoever publish in the internet. Wish I could help you PalmDoc… anyway either the myth is false since so many ppl survive the experiment… or the majority who tried it did not survived to tell the tale eh…
July 17th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
I’ve also made a bit of research.
One more scientific explanation said that the combination causes severe hypertensive crisis leading to hemorrhagic stroke and sudden death.
On the other hand, Singapore science center said “the combination is not shown to be harmful.”
Please see the details of the studies in http://darrenmagic.blogspot.com/2008/07/combination-of-durian-and-alcohol-kills.html
July 17th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
This alleged risk of “combination causes severe hypertensive crisis” – theoretical or proven fact?