You did make a valiant effort. I am no expert at the health situation but I think that drinking more wine would be just as effective and less expensive than all the luxury/rare items that you consumed. My approach was to stick with the staples (MEAT, VEG, WINE), then save the luxury consumption for the last few items of your quota if you still need a boost. 52 FOIE is quite decadent, hats off to you. 
I consume many of the luxury items mid-way as I was getting scared. Note that I still didn't make it, even though I (now wasted) a big amount of money. Did you have a brutal challenge too?
Does anyone know in which way the previously mentioned bugs affected the health challenge? Just wondering whether this is intentional that we need to spend 50$ on every health challenge.
It is not intentional to have to spend $50 each week and there is a roll to determine the severity in addition to other factors such as age, living conditions, etc. Of course, if you want to live forever "its gonna cost you!"
I would also advise trying to stock up on various food and drinks during the week instead of buying at ask prices for the challenge. I added up my consumption for this week at *ASK* prices and it ended up being 40M (I had a Brutal challenge this week). Of course, I had a lot of items so I didn't have to buy at ask, but that is the price if I had to.
Most of the very high-end limited supply stuff has not been overly helpful in the health challenges.
The health challenge is the most interactive part of the game pared with the marketplace so try to maximize the fun by seeing what works. Also for those of you that can, join the ##crypto-kingdom channel on freenode IRC. A lot of us discuss what is working and what is not and you do gain valuable information there. It is the best place to interact until the in-game chat has been fully implemented.
Here is a webchat link with the ##crypto-kingdom room:
http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=%23%23crypto-kingdom&uio=MTE9Mjc3ed