The science behind contaminated baby spinach causing hallucinations

Supermarkets in Australia recalled batches of baby spinach after over 100 people experienced hallucinations after consuming the vegetable, with at least 54 requiring medical attention Image for Representation.
| Photo Credit: M Periasamy

Supermarkets in Australia recalled batches of baby spinach after over 100 people experienced hallucinations with at least 54 requiring medical attention after consuming the vegetable. Authorities believe that the spinach caused toxic reactions due to contamination, TheNew York Timesreported on December 18.

Those affected experienced symptoms such as delirium, blurred vision, dilated pupils, nausea and vomiting, rapid heartbeat, hallucinations, fever and confusion. 

“They’re unable to see properly, they’re confused, they’re having hallucinations. And we’re talking about scary hallucinations; it’s nothing that’s fun,” Darren Roberts, the medical director of New South Wales’s Poisons Information Center, said in an interview on Australian television

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The leafy vegetables, produced in Riviera Farms, are said to be contaminated with a weed, resulting in the severe symptoms. The baby spinach was shipped to Victoria in the Australian Capital Territory, which includes Canberra and New South Wales. 

But how can contaminated spinach cause hallucinations?

A release by the Health Department of Victoria said that the symptoms suggest anticholinergic syndrome, which is caused by substances present in plants like mandrake root, nightshade and Samson weed from the Solanaceae family. 

Plants and drugs containing anticholinergic elements lower or stop the production of acetylcholine, a type of neurotransmitter that aids in thinking, memory and the visual system, Dominic fftytche, a professor of visual psychiatry at King’s College in London, told the publication. 

Loss of acetylcholine is linked to several neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s diseases and types of dementia, he added. 

Hallucinations caused by acetylcholine loss take a more solid appearance— where the patients see distinct people, places and things— as opposed to ‘unformed’ hallucinations, where patients see shapes, colours and patterns. Since acetylcholine is an integral part of the memory system, hallucinations caused by its absence tends to feature people or places that the patient knows or is familiar with. It could include the patient’s “deceased relatives or people that vaguely familiar to them in some way,” Dr ffytche said.

“When you lose an understanding that they are hallucinations, they tend to become distressing. You become sucked into the story where something bad is going on and people are trying to hurt you or harm you in some way,” he explained. 

Though anticholinergic syndromemay not be fatal , it can lead to extreme symptoms and severe effects.