A Case of Reversible Dementia Due to a Strictly Fruitarian Diet

Abstract

A 49-year-old man was admitted in the Psychiatric Unit of our Hospital due to an acute episode of severe agitation and persecutory ideas forcing the wife to bring him to the Emergency Department (ED). His medical history was marked by a couple of similar accesses to the ED with acute agitation in the recent past. In addition, his wife reported in the last 2 years an inclination to retirement and depressive mood and a continuous decline in mood with apathy and inertia and deficits in episodic memory, with increasing forgetfulness despite maintaining good work functioning. Quite surprisingly, she added that the patient had started to follow a strict fruitarian diet with a highly predominant consumption of just apples. He did neither smoke nor drink alcohol. Notwithstanding, oral olanzapine (15 mg / day) was started with improvement of agitation; however, the patient showed a gradual cognitive worsening with disorientation and executive dysfunction.