A 32-year-old man was left partially paralyzed after inhaling nitrous oxide (diazot oxide, laughing gas) from a canister for two months, the New England Journal of Medicine reported.

Laughing gas is used in medicine, for technical purposes, in the food industry, and for filling balloons. It is a colorless gas with a pleasant odor and a sweet taste. Recently, people have begun to use it more and more often for pleasure.  

A man came to the emergency room six weeks after he began to feel tingling in his hands and two weeks after he lost the use of his legs. Doctors diagnosed him with subacute combined degeneration, a condition in which the spine begins to degenerate as a result of vitamin b12 deficiency.

The man had recently been using peptic gas devices. These devices have become popular in recent years among teenagers in the United States and the United Kingdom. 

The use of nitrous oxide canisters is a known cause of vitamin b12 deficiency, the gas can inactivate it in the body.

This vitamin is crucial for maintaining nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, and its deficiency puts a person at risk for serious problems in the nervous system.

Gas inhalation has also been linked to low blood pressure, fainting, heart attacks and sudden death. 

To combat the growing use of so-called whippets - studies show that one in five Americans used them before the age of 13 - New York authorities have banned the purchase of laughing gas devices before the age of 21.