‘Mad honey’ that can stop your heart is now being sold online worldwide

Wild honey from the Himalayan cliff bee, laced with a natural toxin called grayanotoxin from rhododendron nectar, is now sold internationally online as a psychoactive superfood for several hundred dollars per kilogram, according to a chemical ecologist's research. A review of 27 published papers found 68 documented poisoning cases since 2009, about 72% of them middle-aged men who ate the honey deliberately as a folk remedy for blood pressure or sexual function.

The Gurung people of Nepal have safely harvested and dosed the honey for generations, but that calibrated knowledge doesn't travel with the product once it's exported to online buyers in the U.S., Europe and Asia. Poisoning cases have already surfaced in South Korea, France and Qatar, and doctors in those countries — unfamiliar with the substance and not always told what patients ate — face diagnostic delays as a result.

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