Toddler poisoned after eating deadly plant mislabeled as diet supplement
Enlarge / Yellow oleander. (credit: Getty | FlowerPhotos)
Last September, a New Jersey toddler got ahold of a bottle of weight loss supplements. The product, purchased by the toddler's mothers, was labeled as the dried root of tejocote, aka Mexican hawthorn, a large shrub-like plant found in Mexico and Latin America that produces crabapple-like fruits. Although there's little data on the effects of the dried root-including any supporting its use for weight loss-tejocote is generally considered safe to consume.
But the toddler soon experienced nausea and vomiting. At an emergency department, doctors noted low heart rate, falling blood pressure, irregular heartbeats, and a telltale anomaly on an electrocardiogram.
The weight loss supplement was, in fact, not harmless tejocote root-it was entirely pieces of yellow oleander, a poisonous plant containing cardiac glycosides, including a toxic cardenolide, that can cause dysrhythmia and cardiac arrest, among other things.