What Happens If I Eat Puffer Fish?

Puffer Fish, when filleted and served, can easily be mistaken for salmon. In Japan, adventurous gourmets eat puffer fish in sashimi form for its mild effects - a sort of skydiving for the culinary-inclined. However, the majority of consumers will want to avoid this potentially deadly fish.

What happens if you do eat a puffer fish? First let's talk about what makes it so darn dangerous. Puffer fish make a neurotoxin called Tetrodotoxin, the culprit. That's the bad news. The better news? You have a 40% chance of survival if you happen to ingest the poison. But what happens to the other unfortunate 60%?

At first, the toxin creates a barrier to the sodium channels in the human's nervous tissue. The end result? Paralysis. To put it in perspective, one measly little puffer fish has the ability to kill about 30 people! So what are the warning signs to look for? After ingesting the puffer, you might feel a little dizzy, your lips may start to tingle and you might feel a little drunk. Some might think that sounds pretty good (remember that sashimi we talked about, that is precisely why it is so popular). However, as the poison starts to work its way throughout your body, everything will start to go numb and most likely, you'll start to vomit. As if that wasn't enough, your heart beat will speed up and you'll soon lose all muscle control. Next, you'll suffocate because you won't have the ability to breathe on your own anymore. Obviously, the worst case scenario is death. Some victims get lucky, only falling into a coma for several days. Those that do go into a comatose state will remember everything, one of the unexplainable and strange side effects of the Puffer's neurotoxin. Victims who are still alive after 24 hours are most likely to make a full recovery.

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pufferfish, http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,294190,00.html