A tuna steak dinner quickly led to life-threatening hypotension and tachycardia in a healthy woman, in a case her treating doctors hope will raise awareness of scombroid (histamine) fish poisoning.

The 48-year-old nurse practitioner’s symptoms were initially thought to signal cardiogenic shock related to acute coronary syndrome or pericarditis or myocarditis, due to the sudden onset.

But the real culprit was the elevated histamine level in the tuna, which was not as fresh as it tasted, says the team from the Inova Fairfax Medical Campus in Falls Church, Virginia, US.

The nurse practitioner, who coauthored her own case report, developed palpitations, tachycardia and hypotension 10 minutes after consuming the tuna.