Eating durian with alcohol can actually kill you

The age-old Asian folklore that eating durian, known as the ‘king of fruits’, along with alcohol can kill you, holds some truth, say researchers.

John Maninang and Hiroshi Gemma from the University of Tsukuba, Japan believe that the lethal side effects might be due to stinky fruit’s high sulphur content which impairs alcohol breakdown.

The experiments have shown that durian extract turned off the activity of aldehyde dehydrogenase by up to 70 per cent, reports New Scientist.

This enzyme plays a vital role in clearing toxic breakdown products.