Young man collapsed and died while on salt supplement diet
Luke McGuire, 26, was found in the back garden of his family home at Oakley Rd, Ranelagh, on Jun 2, last year.
His father, Brian McGuire, told Dublin Coroner’s Court his son took fitness seriously and never drank or took drugs. In the months before his death he was following a “very low protein” vegetarian diet which required him to eat raw vegetables, fruit, and baked potatoes.
The diet was developed by Robert Young, an alternative medicine advocate in the US whose PhD is from the same unaccredited and now defunct distance learning school as Gillian McKeith. It also requires dieters to drink a lot of water. The court heard that the deceased had a scheduled regime of very high water intake.
Mr McGuire said Luke had been talking about “feeling weird” for two months prior to his death. On the day before his death, Luke joined his father and brother in cycling from Ranelagh to Bull Island but complained that he did not “feel right”.
“The next morning he said to me that he was taking these salts and that he thought they were making him feel ill in some way and that he felt thirsty.”
Luke had bought the salts — labelled ‘pHour Salts’ and ‘PuripHy’ — on the internet. He stopped taking the salts on the morning of his death, but continued to drink a lot of water throughout the day.
That evening Luke came into the kitchen when the family were having dinner and seemed fine, the court heard. He then went out the back garden where his water filter was being kept because it was leaking.
Twenty minutes later, his mother Marie Rooney found him on the ground. His father and a family friend started CPR but he never recovered and he was later pronounced dead at St James’s Hospital.
Pathologist Dr Ciarán Ó Riain said the most significant finding at autopsy was tonsillar herniation due to swelling in the brain.
He attributed the swelling to hyponatraemia — an electrolyte disturbance caused by lower than normal sodium levels in the blood — and said this may be related to water intoxication. He said it was possible the salt supplements could have been a contributing factor.
Coroner Dr Brian Farrell said Luke may have been suffering from a chronic low sodium situation that “tipped over” on the day of his death. With the consent of the family, he adjourned the inquest until Nov 8 in order to take further advice.
