A Vietnamese man was admitted to hospital for acute kidney injury after drinking snake wine rumored to be good for male virility.

T., a 61-year-old man in Ho Chi Minh City, is receiving medical treatment and renal dialysis after he was admitted to the emergency ward at Thong Nhat Hospital in Tan Binh District for kidney failure.

According to Dr. Nguyen Bach, head of the kidney-dialysis ward at Thong Nhat Hospital, T. took up drinking wine laced with herbs and medicine of unknown origin a few years ago.

T. believed that drinking from one to two shots of the wine every day would help improve his virility.

Three months ago, T. was diagnosed with prostate enlargement and dysuria, but without such kidney failure symptoms as bladder stones, glomerular nephritis, and autoimmunity.

Listening to advice from friends, T. then reportedly added a snake to his medicinal wine to “improve its effectiveness,” which has caused him to suffer from acute kidney injury.

According to Dr. Nguyen Bach, reduced libido in males from 55 years of age is normal and not a disease symptom that requires any medical treatment.

The mixing of unidentified medicinal herbs with snakes can form toxic active substances that endanger the drinker’s health, according to the doctor.

Dr. Bach advised that a comprehensive knowledge of the origin, components, effects, and side effects of any kind of food or drug prior to ingesting is required to avoid putting one’s health and life at risk.

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