The fatal desire to be healthy

SOMEONE was missing at the University of Ulster’s winter graduation last November.

Luke McGuire’s name was listed among those receiving a Master of Science in Applied Psychology, with distinction — the latest academic achievement for the bright 26-year-old from the Dublin suburb of Ranelagh. But after his name in the graduation programme came the following: (posthumously). No scroll, no future for the popular student with a gift for music and, as yet, no absolute clarity as to how a seemingly fit and healthy young man came to collapse and die in the garden of his parents’ home, nor the strange link between him and a nutrition enterprise in California.

Earlier this month the Dublin City Coroner’s Court heard evidence about Luke’s death on Jun 2, 2011. According to reports, he died after months of sticking to an ‘alkaline diet’ and taking salt supplements he bought on the internet. The website in question was www.phmiracleliving.com, for a company of the same name operated by the husband and wife team of Dr Robert O Young and Shelley Redford Young.