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Glycyrrhizin was valued in ancient Arabia and Greece for treating coughs and in China for relieving irritation of the mucous membranes. In modern times, glycyrrhizin has been shown to be a formidable antiviral, fighting herpes, HIV, hepatitis, influenza, encephalitis and pneumonia as well as less known viruses like respiratory syncytial virus, arboviruses, vaccinia virus and vesicular stomatitis virus. Glycyrrhizin Has Medicinal Properties You may think of licorice as an extract, a sweetener or even a candy, like Good and Plenty, but it’s actually complex biochemically and offers important medical benefits. According to PubChem, a database of chemical molecules maintained by...

Black licorice may look and taste like an innocent treat, but this candy has a dark side. On Sept. 23, 2020, it was reported that black licorice was the culprit in the death of a 54-year-old man in Massachusetts. How could this be? Overdosing on licorice sounds more like a twisted tale than a plausible fact. I have a longstanding interest in how chemicals in our food and the environment affect our body and mind. When something seemingly harmless like licorice is implicated in a death, we are reminded of the famous proclamation by Swiss physician Paracelsus, the Father of...

A 54-year-old man in Massachusetts suffered cardiac arrest after consuming too much black licorice, a new case report from the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) says. The patient was in a fast-food restaurant when he gasped suddenly and lost consciousness, according to the case report. His whole body began to shake, but he remained unresponsive even after those movements stopped. First responders arrived about four minutes after the man lost consciousness and started doing CPR; they also shocked the patient’s heart four times and administered multiple medications, including naloxone, which is often used to treat opioid overdoses. The patient’s...

In case you needed more reason not to eat the worst “candy” in existence, a recent batch of black Red Vines licorice from Union City, Calif. has just been found to contain dangerous amounts of lead. According to a recall issued yesterday, all one-pound bags of black Red Vines labeled “Best Before 020413″ should not be eaten and can be returned to their place of purchase for a full refund, after health officials found the batch to contain up to 13.2 micrograms of lead, or more than twice the state-recommended safe amount.

Extract led to more or less absorption in rats, depending on the drug SALT LAKE CITY — Licorice has long been used as a good treatment for plenty of ills, but the compound that gives the extract its healing powers may also interfere with certain drugs, suggests new research in rats. The findings, presented March 24 at a meeting of the American Chemical Society, suggest that some patients should hold off from sweets made with the plant extract. Glycyrrhizin, the active compound in licorice, is a major constituent found in the roots of Glycyrrhiza species, a group of plants in...

Licorice ingredient ferrets out herpes Nathan Seppa A compound in licorice homes in on lab-grown cells infected with a herpes virus and induces them to self-destruct, a new study finds. These results suggest that a drug based on the compound could seek and destroy herpes viruses hiding in people's bodies. Current antiherpes drugs attack the virus only when it's causing symptoms. The virus in the new study is Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV), which causes skin and lymph cancers. The researchers suspect that the gene responsible for KSHV's capacity to hide out is latency-associated nuclear antigen (LANA). Researchers at New York...

A television advert that shows a guinea pig drinking Heinz tomato ketchup has been criticised by the RSPCA. The commercial features a guinea pig in a cage drinking ketchup instead of water and finishes with the slogan "You can't eat without it". The RSPCA says it sends out the wrong message to pet owners because water is an essential part of the animals' diet. Heinz insisted the advert was a joke meant to imply that everything tastes better with its tomato ketchup. The advert appears during commercial breaks for Emmerdale, as part of Heinz's sponsorship of the ITV1 soap. A...

Licorice—or Die Do hamster-lovers care how differently the presidential candidates treated their family pets? Our columnist investigatesWEB-EXCLUSIVE COMMENTARY By Gersh Kuntzman Newsweek Updated: 12:12 p.m. ET Sept. 13, 2004Sept. 13 - Who would make a better president: A man who fought valiantly to save an innocent soul or a man who stood by as a defenseless being lost his life? advertisement Oy, not the Vietnam War again. Don’t worry. I’m going to reopen an even-deeper wound: The Hamster War. The battle began at the Democratic National Convention when Alexandra Kerry, candidate John Kerry’s daughter, told what she obviously believed was...

In honor of Licorice and J.F.K's band of hamsters, let's all do the Hamster dance! Click Here To Do The Hamster Dance

LONDON (Reuters) - A compound isolated from the root of the liquorice plant could be more effective than current treatments for SARS (news - web sites), the virus that has killed 780 people worldwide, German scientists said on Friday. Glycyrrhizin, or liquorice root, is already given to patients suffering from HIV (news - web sites) and hepatitis C. Researchers at Frankfurt University Medical School now believe it could help to combat SARS. "Our findings suggest that glycyrrhizin should be assessed for treatment of SARS," Jindrick Cinatl said in a report in The Lancet medical journal. SARS, which first broke out...