Patient Bizarre: The Strange Syndrome That Makes Patients Addictive To Food And Drink

A 48-year-old political journalist is admitted to a Swiss hospital due to stroke. Scans of his brain showed that the middle cerebral artery in the right hemisphere was injured, causing weakness on the left side of his body. Even though he is no longer able to walk, this does not bother the patient the most, who finds the hospital food disgusting and keeps complaining about it. A fairly common claim that the neurologist taking care of him, Marianne Rigard, doesn’t pay much attention to. Still the patient develops a pathological obsession with fine food and good food.

The doctors asked him to keep a diary in which to write down his thoughts; He noticed that the latter is full of lines and lines on the food. Before his stroke, the man was fond of politics and didn’t value cooking much more than that. But now it’s his whole life! Upon his release from the hospital, he returned to work at his newspaper and abandoned political topics to become a food critic. This case, described in the 1990s by Swiss neurologists Marianne Regard and Theodor Landis, is the first case of a surprising eating disorder called “gourmand syndrome”.

When liking good food is a sign of a brain problem

Gourmand syndrome appears as a result of brain damage (brain cancer, stroke, injury…) in the right hemisphere and results in a sudden and obsessive interest in food, cooking, restaurants or certain foods. After an accident, patients also suffer from memory and motor skills problems that subside with rehabilitation. His pathological tendency towards food persists. In their 1998 paper, Rigard and Landis believe they identified 34 additional cases of Gourmand syndrome by analyzing medical data from 732 patients with traumatic brain injury.

Since then, others have occurred, even though it remains a rare pathology. Kevin Pearce has a story, a snowboarder The professional who nearly died after an impressive fall half pipe in 2009. The accident put him in a coma and when he awoke, he was left unconscious, unable to walk and talk, and with uncontrollable urges. pestoA basil sauce that she didn’t really like before the accident.

Gourmand syndrome also appeared in a 10-year-old boy with drug-resistant epileptic seizures. Before each crisis, the child develops a concern about the preparation of his food and the use of refined and quality ingredients. There is no specific treatment for Gourmand syndrome and, unlike many eating disorders, it does not necessarily put health at risk by not putting on weight. Nevertheless, it can be a mental and economic burden for the patient and his companions.