Fans of heavyweight champion Mike Tyson, 57, are concerned about his health after an alarming scare during a flight from Miami to Los Angeles on Sunday.
Tyson, who is set to fight 27-year-old Jake Paul in just two months, inexplicably became dizzy and nauseous – symptoms believed to be related to a stomach ulcer, believed to be in his stomach.
Paramedics boarded the plane in California to provide immediate medical attention to Mr Tyson.
The debacle has led to speculation about what exactly happened to cause these strange symptoms, and whether this means he will have to postpone the highly anticipated fight.
Worryingly, some research suggests Tyson could be at risk of developing a more sinister condition, including catastrophic internal bleeding.
Mike Tyson suffered a medical scare during a flight from Miami to Los Angeles on Sunday.
Stomach ulcers are small sores that develop on the lining of the stomach or small intestine and can cause a variety of gastrointestinal symptoms, from nausea and bloating to vomiting and dizziness.
One of the most serious and rare complications of a stomach ulcer is the chance that the ulcer will turn into a rupture, where your stomach or colon splits open in a so-called perforation. according to the NIH.
This is a rare complication, about 2 to 14 percent of people with ulcers.
When the stomach or colon splits open, the acid and bacteria they normally contain can enter the body, leading to a life-threatening condition known as sepsis.
The first symptoms may look a bit like fever and cause dizziness, nausea and high fever.
A stomach ulcer is perforated and is fatal in about 30 percent of cases.
The risk could be a concern for Tyson’s doctors because a blow to the stomach can also cause perforations, especially in the ulcerated areas.
If you have an ulcer or get punched in the stomach, “it doesn’t mean you’re going to have a gastrointestinal perforation, but you are more likely to get one,” doctors at the Cleveland Clinic wrote.
However, it is more likely that the altitude made the typical symptoms of a stomach ulcer much worse.
The common symptoms of a peptic ulcer include burning stomach pain, heartburn and bloating. according to Mayo Clinic.
But some people develop troubling symptoms, such as nausea, vomiting, or dizziness.
Altitude can worsen gastrointestinal conditions such as ulcers towards an evaluation in 2022 of exercise scientists at the University of New Mexico.
This may be because a change in air pressure affects the amount of vital oxygen available to the body’s cells, the authors wrote.
If your intestinal cells have less oxygen, they may not produce the same amount of protective layer as normal, which is the body’s natural defense against stomach acid and ulcers.
Even temporary altitude changes during a flight can be enough to disrupt your intestines, according to a 2014 study by the University of Zurich found it.
Despite popular ideas linking the condition to stress or coffee, ulcers are most often caused by a bacteria called H. Pylori, according to Mayo Clinic.
You can get this bug through contact with an infected person, or from bad food or water.
Doctors don’t fully understand how the bacteria causes ulcers, but estimate it is the cause of the approximately 4 million cases of the problem in the US.
Smoking, drinking alcohol, or taking over-the-counter pain relievers such as aspirin or Advil can all increase the chance of developing an ulcer.
Tyson will face Jake Paul in his return to the ring later this year on Netflix.
A studywhich looked at data from more than 50 million hospital admissions, found that Americans who regularly used cannabis were 18 percent more likely to develop stomach ulcers than those who did not use the drug.
Mr. Tyson is the founder of Tyson 2.0, a cannabis company estimated to be worth $400 million. The entrepreneur is known to smoke $40,000 worth of weed every month on his cannabis ranch in California.
In fact, it is such a regular habit of his that he has publicly sworn off it in recent months in preparation for his July match against Mr. Paul.
Whatever caused Mr. Tyson’s ulcer could pose a dangerous risk ahead of his first fight in years. There is no official recommendation for when professional fighters should put down the gloves.
There is no official recommendation for when professional fighters should take off the gloves, and anyone who enters the boxing ring is at risk of brain damage, says Dr. Gail Rosseau, a neurosurgeon at North Shore University Health System in Illinois, said the Grio.
But those stakes become much higher as a fighter ages. “The older you are when you sustain a traumatic brain injury (such as in boxing), the less likely you are to recover to your pre-injury status,” said Dr. Rosseau.
She added: ‘the typical time course for recovery from the same blow is longer in the older age group.’