Mushrooms can be tasty.

They can also be deadly. And you’ve gotta hope that the overlap between those two kinds of mushrooms is small.

But every now and again, people eat mushrooms they think are totally fine … until they learn those were an  innocent mushroom’s evil twin. And that snack becomes a trip to the emergency room. So here is how these mushrooms do it.

Spoiler alert: they have more than one way to bring you down. And if the gory details don’t put you off eating wild mushrooms for good, you might learn some tips on how to  avoid a potentially fatal mistake by the end of this video. [SciShow Music] When we say these mushrooms are the deadliest, we’re referring to the number of people who have died after eating them. Some are super toxic.

Others less so, but with a sinister resemblance to shrooms people eat all the time in large quantities. In either case, the result is often the same: a trip to the ER. There’s nothing fun about any of these fungi.

The first mushroom on our list mimics one of the tastiest treats of the forest: the morel mushroom. People have compared the  flavor of morels to steak, and they are served in fine dining restaurants when they are in season. you can find them in the woods here in Montana, and they are delicious. And the false morel looks awfully similar.

Its species name, esculenta, means edible in Latin. Which sounds like somebody messed up on that one. We’re starting off with this one because, while it can be deadly, it is less so than some of the ones we’ll cover.

You need to eat quite a few of them before they will kill you. Researchers estimate that an average sized adult would need to eat up to 1 kilogram of false morels in order to get a lethal dose. That’s quite a bit more than a large package of mushrooms at the grocery store.

I know that this like may all sound cartoonish. But each of the entries in  this list of deadly mushrooms really has taken human lives. So if you’re in North America or Europe, where the False Morel is found, you might want to keep an eye open for them.

One of the ways to differentiate the false morel from the real one is to look at their stems. The stem of a true morel is hollow, while the stem of a false morel is solid. But if you accidentally eat  a ton of the wrong ones, you’ll have exposed yourself  to a toxin known as gyromitrin.

Your body takes that toxin and converts it into an even more potent compound called monomethylhydrazine, which is also found in rocket fuel! So personally, not something I want all up in my body. But not just because it’s in rocket fuel. oxygen can be a component of rocket fuel Monomethylhydrazine interferes with enzymes that make vitamin B6, which you need to produce  the neurotransmitter GABA.

And since GABA is your  brain’s primary stop signal, not having enough of it is a huge deal. Basically, monomethylhydrazine ramps down the stop signals in your brain. As you can imagine, this can cause your body to go haywire.

Your brain can end up over-excited and you could have seizures. Before you get to potentially  life-threatening seizures, you might also feel nauseous and you might get liver and kidney damage. So if you start feeling like you might puke after you’ve eaten a bunch of mushrooms, it might be a good idea to  go see somebody about that.

The good news is that once you get to a doctor, there’s stuff they can do  to get rid of your symptoms before they become deadly. Since the problem is a lack of vitamin B6, you can just get an IV to add  some back into your system to replace what you’ve lost. And you might get around the whole problem by boiling or drying the mushrooms before eating them, because that can also remove  the majority of the gyromitrin.

So there are ways to avoid death by false morel. But you might not be so lucky if you accidentally eat this next mushroom. The fly agaric is the mushroom that you probably picture when you hear the word “mushroom.” It’s like the classic red mushroom with little white spots that looks like it came straight out of a fairy tale… or a game of Mario Kart.

It is cute… It is dangerous. Sometimes these white spots  can wash off in heavy rains, making the mushroom appear  more like the closely related, non-toxic, Caesar’s mushroom. So if you’re out foraging in  the UK or other parts of Europe where these mushrooms are found, be extra careful after a big rain storm.

If you do accidentally make yourself a poison mushroom meal, you could end up like one unlucky person who died after just 5 of these dried mushrooms. They contain a mix of toxins, called alkaloids, that mess with your brain. Specifically, muscarine, ibotenic acid, and muscimol.

Unlike the false morel, which reduces the amount of GABA in the brain, these compounds act like  you’ve got way too much GABA. This can make you feel dizzy and disoriented, and may even make you feel like time and space are distorted. You’ll probably want to  have a doctor check you out for these mind-bending symptoms, at all But just to add some incentive, if you go untreated, you could end up in a coma or dead as a doornail.

To prevent that from happening, doctors can treat you by pumping your stomach and giving you some activated charcoal to try to soak up those toxins before they hit the bloodstream. And these two mushrooms wrap up our brain-warping section, but just because your brain might be safe, certainly doesn’t mean you  should take these next mushrooms any less seriously. If you’re planning a trip  to Lithuania any time soon, you might want to monitor  your mushroom consumption.

Our next mushroom on the list  is called the yellow knight, and it’s a staple of the Lithuanian diet. And no, not all Lithuanians are superheroes impervious to poison. The key thing about yellow knight mushrooms is that you need to eat a lot in order for them to kill you.

Some researchers estimate that a killer dose requires  eating more than 800 grams, or about 4 cups of cooked mushrooms. Now you might be thinking to yourself, ‘but I thought the false  morel required up to 1 kg. 800 grams isn’t even that much’. But I haven’t mentioned the part where you would need to eat 800 grams every day… For four weeks straight.

So… just, that's just a lot of mushrooms. But it’s a thing that does happen. If you’re a true mushroom fiend and find yourself eating lots of these, and you may begin feeling weak, nauseous, or start sweating. and when that happens, it is definitely time to  get yourself to the doctor.

It’s still a bit of a mystery what, exactly is so dangerous in these mushrooms, but scientists do know that eating them in very large quantities repeatedly over time can cause something called rhabdomyolysis. Rhabdomyolysis, or rhabdo, as the cool kids say, is a condition where your muscles basically start disintegrating. And while this may initially just sound like a problem for your hard  earned gains in the gym, rhabdo can be extremely serious.

Not only are pretty key parts  of life controlled by muscles, you know, little things like breathing and your heart pumping blood in your body, but when your muscles break down in rhabdo, all those waste products can  also clog up your kidneys. So people who eat too much yellow knight can die from heart dysfunction or kidney damage. Like many of these mushrooms, replacing fluids can help you recover, along with treatments that help keep blood moving easily, like blood thinners and diuretics. alright, this next mushroom is a doozy.

This fungus, called Podostroma cornu-damae, looks super cool, but look is really all you should do with it. Even just touching this fungus could be dangerous because the toxins might be absorbed directly through the skin. As you may have guessed, that means these mushrooms are extremely toxic when eaten.

A measly 1 gram is enough to kill. Unfortunately, this death food also looks a lot like the health food Ganoderma lucidum. If you find yourself in East Asia, keep an eye out for a beautiful fungus that looks like fire coral.

These life-threatening beauties use toxins called trichothecenes, which stop you from being  able to make proteins and DNA. Which are like, two of the most fundamental things your cells need to do in order to keep you alive. So if those basic functions aren’t working, you can experience a whole  bunch of other problems.

Maybe the most surprising one that comes from Podostroma cornu-damae goes by the name of lamellar desquamation. And that fancy term, just means that your skin starts to fall off. In particular, it falls off from your hands,  your feet, and your face. and again, your face This should go without saying, but if your skin starts unexpectedly peeling off, you should go to doctor, as fast as you can.

As more and more cells stop functioning, organs will also stop functioning, which can lead to death. But if you see a doctor at the first signs of unusual skin sloughing, or hopefully even earlier than that, there is a suite of treatments they can provide, like antibiotics, transfusions, and more, to help counteract these toxins and the symptoms they produce. That may be the goriest example yet.

But it’s not the worst mushroom on this list. In fact, it’s not even the second  worst mushroom on this list. That title of second worst  goes to the deadly webcap.

It’s quite potent, requiring only 1 to 3 mushrooms to damage your kidneys enough to kill you. And it’s more common than you might think for people to eat that many mushrooms with “deadly” in the name. Folks who mistake them for the Northern European and North American delicacy mushroom, the Chanterelle, will be sorely disappointed!

But with a keen eye, this mistake can be easily avoided by looking for a few key features. First, Chanterelles are a very sunshine-y yellow, while the webcaps are brown. Second, on the underside of a webcap are gills, whereas the Chanterelle has veins.

Now, if you’re not a mushroom fanatic, you might not have any clue  what I’m talking about, so here’s a simple way to tell them apart: The gills of a deadly webcap can be easily removed with your finger, whereas the veins of a Chanterelle cannot be removed like that. Also if you don’t know what you’re doing, just eat them from the store. And it’s worth a double check, because if you do make this unfortunate mix-up, your body is about to be stressed.

Both in the ‘oh no I just ate some toxic mushrooms’ kind of way and in the cellular stress kind of way. See, cells are like little factories, with tons of tiny parts working  together to make them function. And if you were to, say, throw a bowling ball through  that factory’s window, you’re bound to break some stuff.

That’s what webcaps do. They make something called orellanine, which releases highly  reactive forms of oxygen atoms called oxygen radicals that bounce around your cells like bowling balls in a factory. In a normal cell factory, there are workers who would run around and try to catch these bowling balls to stop them from preventing damage.

But orellanine also slows down the ability of these cell workers to stop the damage from bowling balls. So it's a real one-two punch of cellular stress. that was my best one-two punch… by the way. I’m not… don’t, don’t fight me.

I will lose… Orellanine specifically  targets cells in the kidneys, causing enough damage that the cells can no longer function. This is already a whole lot of bad news, but even worse news is that there often are not that many symptoms until your kidneys start to fail. But don’t let this keep you up at night. because first, we just told you how to avoid this and second People have been successfully treated after consumption of deadly webcaps and have lived to tell the tale.

Doctors can reduce the buildup of these damaging free radicals using dialysis to filter the blood. In severe cases of kidney damage, you might need a kidney transplant So that’s pretty bad. But we haven’t even reached our star of the show.

Coming in at number one on the deadly mushroom charts is… the death cap. These seemingly innocent little mushrooms are responsible for the vast majority of mushroom-related deaths around the world. Part of the reason is that these mushrooms can be found everywhere.

Another part is that they can be mistaken for the benign field mushroom. But you can tell them apart by their color. The top of a death cap can have a green tint, while the top of a field mushroom is pure white.

And if you flip it over, the gills of the death cap are white, while the gills of the field mushroom are darker, often a pink or brown color. But even if you can identify  a death cap almost every time, a single mushroom has more than enough toxins to kill an average sized adult. Death caps contain amatoxins, which are a class of alkaloids that are absorbed by the intestines and sent into the liver.

There, they stop proteins from being made, and presto your cells are dead. Since the intestines are involved, it’s not too surprising that you’d end up with gastrointestinal issues like your classic nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, coupled with dehydration, and ultimately liver toxicity. Classic pooping and puking yourself to death But, if it’s possible to have a silver lining to the fact that these mushrooms kill a disproportionate amount of people, it’s that there is a vested interest in finding an effective treatment.

And there is something in the pipeline that seems very promising. Of course, like the other mushroom toxins, there are some general treatments that can help remove toxins  and alleviate symptoms, like using activated charcoal  and replacing fluids. But there’s also a promising treatment for amatoxin poisoning.

This treatment is called silibinin, which works by limiting the uptake of amatoxins into liver cells. And the people who make the drug demonstrate d that it can reduce the likelihood of death from amatoxin poisoning by more than 50%. Prevention though, is still certainly the best medicine here but if all else fails, it's great to have another  option to flush out these toxins.

So there you have it! Even the most innocent looking  mushrooms can kill you. Mushrooms can take you down by brain malfunction, muscle  deterioration, liver toxicity, or kidney failure. they are not messing around! and you want to keep all the skin on your face Keep that in mind the next time you’re in the forest foraging for mushrooms.

And maybe bring a field guide. [ OUTRO MUSIC ]