Fans of heavyweight champion fighter Mike Tyson, 57, are concerned about his health following an alarming scare on a flight from Miami to Los Angeles on Sunday.
Tyson, who is set to fight 27 year old Jake Paul in a mere two months, became inexplicably dizzy and nauseous — symptoms that are said to be linked to an ulcer, thought to be in his abdomen.
Paramedics boarded the plane in California to deliver immediate medical attention to Mr Tyson.
The debacle has led to speculation as to what exactly has happened to cause these odd symptoms, and whether or not it means he will have to delay the long-awaited fight.
Concerningly, some research suggests that Tyson could be at risk of developing a more sinister condition, including a catastrophic internal bleed.
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 host of GI symptoms, from nausea and bloating to vomiting and dizziness.
One of the most severe and rare complications of an ulcer is the potential for the sore to turn into a rupture – splitting your stomach or colon open in what’s called a perforation, according to the NIH.
This is a rare complication, affecting approximately 2 to 14 percent of people with ulcers.
When the stomach or colon splits open, the acid and bacteria that they normally contains may spill out into the body, which can lead to a life-threatening condition known as sepsis.
Initial symptoms can present a bit like a fever, causing dizziness, nausea and a high temperature.
An ulcer stomach perforation and is fatal in about 30 percent of cases.
The risk may be a concern to Tyson’s doctors, as being hit in the stomach can also cause perforation, particularly in ulcerated regions.
Having an ulcer or getting punched in the stomach, ‘doesn’t mean you will have a gastrointestinal perforation, but your risk of having one is higher,’ according to doctors from the Cleveland Clinic wrote.
However, more likely is simply that the altitude made the typical symptoms of an abdominal ulcer much worse.
The everyday symptoms of an ulcer include burning stomach pain, heartburn and bloating, according to Mayo Clinic.
But some people develop more troubling symptoms, like nausea, vomiting or dizziness.
Elevation can make GI conditions, like ulcers, worse, according to a 2022 review from 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 gut cells have less oxygen, they might not produce the same amount of protective coating that they normally do – which is the body’s natural defense against stomach acid and ulcer.
Even temporary changes in elevation that happen over the course of a flight could be enough to disrupt your gut, a 2014 study from the University of Zurich found.
Despite popular ideas that pin the condition on stress or coffee, ulcers are usually caused by a bacteria, called H. Pylori, according to Mayo Clinic.
You can get this bug by contact with an infected person, or bad food or water.
Doctors don’t quite understand how the bacteria causes ulcers, but estimate that it behind the roughly 4 million cases of the problem in the US.
Smoking, drinking alcohol or using over the counter pain medicines like aspirin or Advil can all increase your likelihood of developing an ulcer.
Tyson will take on Jake Paul in his return to the ring on Netflix later this year.
One study, which looked at data from over 50 million hospitalizations, found that Americans who regularly used cannabis were 18 percent more likely to have ulcers as compared to those who didn’t use the drug.
Mr Tyson is the founder of Tyson 2.0 a weed company that is worth an estimated $400 million dollars. The entrepreneur has been known to smoke $40,000 worth of pot a month from his California cannabis ranch.
It’s such a common habit of his, in fact, that he publicly swore it off in previous months to prepare for his July match against Mr Paul.
Whatever caused Mr Tyson’s ulcer, it might be a dangerous liability ahead of his first fight in years. There’s no official recommendation for when professional fighters should put down the gloves.
There’s no official recommendation for when professional fighters should put down the gloves, and anyone who steps into the boxing ring is at risk for brain damage, Dr. Gail Rosseau, a neurosurgeon at North Shore University Health System in Illinois, told the Grio.
But those stakes become much higher as a fighter ages. ‘The older you are when you sustain a traumatic brain injury [as in boxing], the less likely you are to recover to your pre-injury status,’ Dr Rosseau said.
She added: ‘the typical time course for recovery from the same blow is longer in the older age group.’
