Go Blind From Eating Only Potatoes

2024 Author: Steven Freeman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 08:15

A British teenager has become permanently blind and partially deaf after suffering a rare disease as a result of spending years eating only French fries, sausages and white bread. The currently 19-year-old boy never showed obesity or symptoms that indicated something was wrong.

Doctors and ophthalmologists from the University of Bristol took the case of the boy who, at the age of 14, began to complain of extreme tiredness. The boy confessed back then that he only ate fried sausage potatoes and occasionally a sandwich because he didn't like things with weird textures.

"He has only eaten Pringles, sausages, and other processed foods since he was of primary school age," Dr. Denize Atan, one of the ophthalmologists at Bristol Medical School and Bristol Eye Hospital who reviewed the case, told MailOnline.

According to Atan, the parents of the minor - whose age has not been identified - were the ones who began to give the child fried potatoes since he was little because otherwise he would not eat anything. At the age of 14, his parents took him to his general doctor because he began to have hearing and eye problems. There he detected a severe deficiency of vitamin B12, copper and vitamin D. "Clearly he was ingesting enough calories but not nutrients," said the aforementioned doctor. "When his problems started he looked like a healthy 14-year-old boy."

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And although his body mass, weight, and height were apparently normal, his body lacked the nutrients it needed to perform crucial functions, and his optic nerve suffered irreversible damage. The young man was finally diagnosed with nutritional optic neuropathy, a disease that rarely occurs in industrialized countries and is only observed in places at war or with severe malnutrition problems.

Gary Frost, professor of nutrition and dietetics at the Imperial College of London told CNN that it is "very difficult to find a neuropathy" when the patient consumes animal products, such as ham or eggs "that are significant sources of vitamin B12", assured. "Although this is an extreme case, it highlights the importance of having a wide and varied diet to ensure that the profile of nutrients and micro-nutrients that are necessary for healthy development is received," he said.

The 19-year-old today, who was a technology student, had to abandon his studies at a local school due to his health problems. When his mother was blind, he had to give up his job to be able to take care of him.

Now he is legally blind, and although he still has peripheral vision, the center of his eyes is totally blocked. "I have become very isolated, when I was little I went out and played soccer with my friends, I am very scared to do that now," the boy confessed sadly to the Daily Telegraph newspaper.