Andy Young had been homebrewing beer for years. He knew what a good pint tasted like. So when he sat down one evening in late 2025 and spent nearly three hours trying to finish a single beer, something registered. The taste was off – not unpleasant in any way he could name, just wrong. An effort, he would later say, to get through.
He assumed it was a passing bug. A man who had gone almost 20 years without taking a sick day doesn’t rush to the doctor over a changed palate. But by March 2026, Andy Young, a 62-year-old retired financial controller from Harpenden, England, had a diagnosis: multiple myeloma – a blood cancer that is currently treatable but, as his consultant put it plainly upon delivering the news, not curable.
The story of how a shift in taste led to a cancer diagnosis is unusual enough to catch your attention. The biology behind it turns out to be less surprising than you’d expect, and the multiple myeloma symptoms that preceded Young’s diagnosis are far more common than most people realize before they’re living with them.
What Multiple Myeloma Actually Is
For years, patients have been told that multiple myeloma is treatable but not curable – and that’s still where medicine stands in 2026. Multiple myeloma is a cancer that develops in plasma cells found in the bone marrow (the soft, spongy tissue inside your bones where blood cells are made). When plasma cells become cancerous, they multiply uncontrollably and crowd out the healthy cells the body needs to fight infection and carry oxygen.
The disease is more common in men than in women. A 2026 clinical review published in American Family Physician found that the median age at diagnosis is 69 years – which means Young, at 62, was on the younger end of the typical range. That same review also confirmed multiple myeloma accounts for a significant share of hematological (blood-related) cancers, making it the second most common blood cancer globally. In the United States alone, about 36,000 new cases are expected to be diagnosed in 2026, according to the American Cancer Society.
How a Beer Led to a Diagnosis
Andy Young, a 62-year-old father of three who had spent years enjoying beer and even brewing his own at home, began experiencing what he thought were mild flu-like symptoms in the weeks leading up to Christmas 2025. The beer he once loved no longer appealed to him, and it took him nearly three hours to finish a single beer because he wasn’t enjoying the taste.
He also noticed low-level nausea, tiredness, and chest pain alongside the taste changes. After three weeks with no improvement, Young visited his GP. While his doctor didn’t clarify whether the beer symptom was health-related, blood tests revealed his kidneys were not functioning properly, and he was advised to drink more water – but follow-up tests over the coming weeks showed no improvement.
Further tests, including urine tests, X-rays, ECGs, ultrasounds, and a bone marrow biopsy, then revealed he had myeloma in March 2026. It took clinicians almost three months to reach the diagnosis. “I was just thinking it was a kidney problem,” Young said. “The consultant came in to break the news and said, ‘You’ve got myeloma, it’s a blood cancer, it’s treatable but not curable.'”
The Link Between Taste, Kidneys, and Multiple Myeloma Symptoms
The connection between Young’s changed taste and his cancer runs through his kidneys, and it’s a well-documented one. Kidney impairment affects between 30 and 50% of multiple myeloma patients either at diagnosis or during disease progression. The reason comes down to the biology of the cancer itself: myeloma cells produce incomplete antibodies, also called light chains, which can cause damage to kidney tissue, according to Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center.
When kidney function drops, the body’s ability to filter waste from the blood is compromised. Taste changes are common in kidney disease because of the build-up of toxins in the body. The main reason for this taste shift is uremia – a condition where kidneys can’t filter waste well, allowing substances like urea and creatinine to build up in the blood. This buildup disrupts how taste buds function, causing the altered or unpleasant taste that kidney patients often describe. A 2024 review published in the Journal of Renal Nutrition confirmed that altered taste perception (called dysgeusia) is a common and often overlooked symptom in people with chronic kidney disease.
Taste disturbances in cancer aren’t limited to kidney-related mechanisms either. Research published in peer-reviewed journals suggests that taste alteration might be an early sign of tumor cell invasion in cancer patients – though this evidence remains preliminary. Sensory changes including taste and smell are extremely common in cancer, affecting up to 70% of people with the disease during treatment, according to nutritional oncology data from Nutricia.
The Symptoms That Actually Signal Multiple Myeloma
Young’s case is instructive because his presenting complaints were easy to dismiss. Mild fatigue, a bit of nausea, chest discomfort, and a changed palate for beer – none of those would send most healthy adults rushing to their GP. Yet they were the first threads that eventually unravelled a cancer diagnosis.
According to the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), multiple myeloma may present with symptoms such as bone pain, fatigue, anemia, weight loss, kidney failure, and hypercalcemia (elevated calcium levels in the blood). Anemia – a shortage of red blood cells that leaves the body with less capacity to carry oxygen – is one of the most consistent findings, present in approximately 80% of multiple myeloma patients at diagnosis.
Bone pain, particularly in the back, hips, or skull, is another hallmark. The cancer weakens the bone structure by disrupting the normal cycle of bone building and breakdown. Fatigue that doesn’t improve with rest, recurring infections, and unexplained weight loss are all part of the clinical picture. The difficulty is that each of those symptoms, on its own, sounds like dozens of far more common conditions. Young hadn’t heard of myeloma before his diagnosis – and given how it presents, that’s not unusual.
For diagnosis, a bone marrow biopsy is the essential standard test. The diagnosis of multiple myeloma requires at least 10% or more clonal plasma cells in the bone marrow sample, according to the National Comprehensive Cancer Network’s 2026 guidelines.
Screening populations matter too. Black individuals have a 2-fold higher risk of developing multiple myeloma compared to white individuals, making awareness of multiple myeloma symptoms especially important in that community. Anyone with persistent, unexplained fatigue, bone pain, or signs of declining kidney function – particularly over the age of 50 – should raise those symptoms explicitly with a doctor rather than waiting to see whether they resolve.
For more on how low-level, easy-to-dismiss symptoms can point to serious illness, see this overview of overlooked cancer warning signs.
Treatment and the Road to Remission
Young has since completed several weeks of chemotherapy, and there are signs the treatment is working. He noted: “I can drink a beer now, so I think that shows that the chemotherapy is working and my kidneys must be improving.” He is preparing for a stem cell transplant in October 2026 in hopes of reaching remission.
Autologous stem cell transplants – a procedure in which a patient’s own stem cells are collected, stored, and then reinfused after high-dose chemotherapy – can lead to remission in about 50 to 60% of multiple myeloma patients, according to Mount Elizabeth Hospital. That number is meaningful but not a cure: remission in myeloma means the disease is controlled, not eradicated.
With current therapies, the broader survival picture has improved substantially over the past two decades, driven by newer drug classes including immunomodulatory agents and proteasome inhibitors. The 5-year relative survival rate for multiple myeloma rose from 32% in the mid-1990s to 62% in the most recent data period, according to Cancer Statistics, 2026, published in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians.
Read More: Cancer Symptoms Often Dismissed as Aging
What to Do Now
Young’s message is straightforward: he’s sharing his experience to encourage people not to dismiss unexpected changes in their health, even if they seem minor. His story doesn’t suggest that losing a taste for alcohol is a recognized symptom of multiple myeloma. Rather, an unusual personal change prompted him to seek medical advice, allowing doctors to discover an underlying illness. He wants to remind others that if something doesn’t feel right, having it checked is always the right call.
That instinct has clinical backing. The body has a built-in warning system, and when it signals trouble, medical evaluation is essential – even when symptoms seem too mild or too vague to justify concern. The challenge with multiple myeloma in particular is that its early symptoms don’t announce themselves clearly. Bone pain gets written off as aging. Fatigue gets blamed on a busy schedule. A changed palate gets chalked up to a passing virus.
If you’re over 50, male, or Black, your baseline risk for multiple myeloma is higher than average, and those overlapping, low-grade symptoms deserve more than a wait-and-see approach. A standard blood test can detect early indicators of multiple myeloma, including abnormal protein levels and changes in kidney function, before more serious damage sets in. The difference between catching this disease early versus late is not small – it shapes what treatments are available and, increasingly, whether remission is achievable. Don’t let a beer’s worth of something feeling off go uninvestigated.
Disclaimer: This information is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment and is for information only. Always seek the advice of your physician or another qualified health provider with any questions about your medical condition and/or current medication. Do not disregard professional medical advice or delay seeking advice or treatment because of something you have read here.
AI Disclaimer: This article was created with the assistance of AI tools and reviewed by a human editor.
Disclaimer: This information is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment and is for information only. Always seek the advice of your physician or another qualified health provider with any questions about your medical condition and/or current medication. Do not disregard professional medical advice or delay seeking advice or treatment because of something you have read here.
AI Disclaimer: This article was created with the assistance of AI tools and reviewed by a human editor.
