by https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2025/03/als-outbreak-montchavin-mystery/682096/
It revealed that the ALS patients consistently ate three foods that the controls didn’t: game, dandelion greens, and wild mushrooms.
Spencer joined the research group, and in 2018, he accompanied Lagrange to Montchavin to distribute more surveys and conduct in-person interviews about the victims’ and other locals’ diets—the pair had particular interest in people’s mushroom consumption. From the responses, the team learned that the ALS patients were not the only mushroom foragers in town, but they shared an affinity for a particular species that local interviewees without ALS said they never touched: the false morel.
A false morel looks like a brain that has been left out in the sun. Its cap is a shriveled mass of brown folds, darker than the caramel hue of the true morel. One species, Gyromitra esculenta, grew around Montchavin and was especially abundant near the ski chalets in spring if enough snow had fallen the preceding winter. France has a rich foraging culture, and the false morel was just one of many species mushroom enthusiasts in Montchavin might pick up to sauté with butter and herbs. The false morel contains gyromitrin, a toxin that sickens some number of foragers around the world every year; half of the ALS victims in Montchavin reported a time when they had acute mushroom poisoning. And according to Spencer, the human body may also metabolize gyromitrin into a compound that, over time, might lead to similar DNA damage as cycad seeds.
