Foie gras is a traditional food in France and throughout Europe - where, interestingly, amyloidosis is more common than here - but arrived on the American culinary scene in the 1990s.
"It used to be just the French restaurants, but now every gastro-pub incorporates foie gras," says Terry McNally, co-owner of Philadelphia's London Grill.
So why is this heavy, fat-rich delicacy also rich in amyloids?
Put simply, force-feeding makes animals sick. To produce the succulent livers, tubes are inserted into the birds' throats and corn mush is pumped in, massively inflating the animals and making them tasty.
"The ducks and geese are certainly getting liver damage," says Alexander Whitehead, an amyloid researcher at the University of Pennsylvania who was not involved with the new study.
When animals are stressed for any number of reasons, their livers go into overdrive, making more of a specific type of protein that is linked to inflammatory rheumatoid arthritis. If the stress is prolonged, the excess protein may build up and bunch together as amyloids - first in the delicious fowl liver, then elsewhere.
Human livers, too, can be overwhelmed by amyloids in conjunction with chronic inflammatory disorders. Between 4 percent and 5 percent of people with rheumatoid arthritis, for example, come down with amyloidosis, a massive and sometimes fatal influx of amyloids into organs.
Each amyloid disease involves the clumping of a different protein. Alzheimer's amyloids don't match arthritis amyloids, for example. Before they form amyloids, however, these proteins are often part of a normal, healthy organism.
It is only when normal proteins encounter contagious abnormal proteins such as those now found in foie gras that things may go south.
