A particularly spicy meal eaten by a woman in China recently had some quite serious health effects, with a resultant coughing fit leaving her with four broken ribs.
The incident was reported by the South China Morning Post, which described how the Shanghai-based woman heard a sharp cracking sound coming from her chest as she struggled for breath after getting a bit of chilli caught in her throat.
She was admitted to hospital for a CT scan which subsequently revealed the injury to her ribcage, with doctors ordering strapping and bed rest while the bones healed.
They said the underlying cause of the fractures was her unhealthily low body weight, with the 171cm-tall lady weighing just 57kg.
"COCAINE Bear" - no, it's not the nickname of a cuddly drug dealer, but rather the title of a new movie recounting the odd case of a bear high on cocaine.
The trailer for the film confirms it's based on a true story from 40 years ago when an 80kg black bear ingested a significant quantity of the drug, which it found in a forest in the US state of Georgia.
That's about as far as the link to reality goes, with artistic licence seeing the producers base the film on the supposed drug-induced "bloody spree" which ensued the drug binge.
The reality is more prosaic - wildlife officers found the bear's lifeless body in the woods after it died of an overdose.
The above article was sent to subscribers in Pharmacy Daily's issue from 15 Dec 22
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