Bride-to-be dies after losing 3st on her crash diet - eating just 530 calories a day

Diets like these, the Cambridge diet being another, are unhealthy....PERIOD! Please understand, it's takes time to put the weight on and it takes longer to take it off. Any crash diet plays havoc with your body. It can cause severe renal problems, palpatations and worse! STEER clear!!! Weight loss requires determination and will power BUT not starvation. A good start point is to reduce your caloric intake by 10%-15% for the first 4 weeks. This approach, allied to a sensible exercise regime will give you the kick start you need. After the first 4 weeks you re-assess and change to suit. That will help you avoid going "stale" and plateauing. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE do NOT be tempted by these promises of a quick fix!!!
 
fitness dave said:
Diets like these, the Cambridge diet being another, are unhealthy....PERIOD! Please understand, it's takes time to put the weight on and it takes longer to take it off. Any crash diet plays havoc with your body. It can cause severe renal problems, palpatations and worse! STEER clear!!! Weight loss requires determination and will power BUT not starvation. A good start point is to reduce your caloric intake by 10%-15% for the first 4 weeks. This approach, allied to a sensible exercise regime will give you the kick start you need. After the first 4 weeks you re-assess and change to suit. That will help you avoid going "stale" and plateauing. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE do NOT be tempted by these promises of a quick fix!!!
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This is a great advise
 
I'm going to say something different to the majority of people in this thread.

Do I think it was just the diet that killed her? No

Do I think it contributed to it? Yes, probably.

It does sound like this poor woman probably had a heart condition - undetected, albeit. Someone without that problem would probably do the diet and live to tell the tale.

Would they keep the weight off? I don't know. I know some people that have done these diets and maintained for years. I'm sure there are many that put it back, however. I would never do this diet myself. Too extreme and too unhealthy IMO. Some people don't have the patience to lose weight extremely slowly and would just balloon up further when they don't see "quick" results. For these people the diet may work. Most people simply cannot deal with the physical stress that such a low cal. diet puts on the body. When my Mum was in her 30s, she tried the Cambridge diet (or whatever it was called back then.) She was so exhausted and couldn't function at work. Gave up within one day.
 
WinterBreeze said:
I'm going to say something different to the majority of people in this thread.

Do I think it was just the diet that killed her? No

Do I think it contributed to it? Yes, probably.

It does sound like this poor woman probably had a heart condition - undetected, albeit. Someone without that problem would probably do the diet and live to tell the tale.
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I have to disagree.

I had anorexia on and off for the past 12 years. I did alot of research (as I have a general mistrust of anyone telling me what to do even if they say its for my benefit).

Heart problems to begin with or not, you can develop one on a starvation diet (a starvation diet being one which is lower then your basal calorie intake- ie how much is needed if you are asleep all day and night).

Heart problems are caused by the body going into "starvation mode" and instead of breaking down the fat from around the organs or on the body, it starts to eat away at the muscles instead. You do not have to be underweight to have this happen, you just have to be eating starvation mode stylee for too long.
I cannot say why people's bodies chose heart muscle over leg or back fat, its just what happens and as a result, the heart gets damaged and is at risk.

I would say 100% this diet caused her to die. It may well have been her choice to follow it, her decision to take it to the extreme she did but it was probably likely she thought it was safe as its such a well known diet plan.

I think this diet should be either reformed, banned or those taking it on should be formally educated about the risks of taking it too far. I know that anyone can invent their own starvation diet and do the same alone at home, but its very different to an organisation actually rating it as a good way to lose weight.
 
Hey Summer, good for you!!! Unfortunately the most common reason for "unhealthy dieting", IMO, is ignorance. By that I don't mean stupidity just lack of knowledge regarding the workings of the human body. Lots of people have tried this and other crazily low cal diets and come through......relatively few have KEPT the weight off and many have actually put MORE back on. The bottom line is it's unhealthy, unnatural, and ill advised. Take it steady when you diet, do it for YOU and, above all else enjoy it and the results you get.
 
Yeah, it's too bad all those medical doctors are so ignorant. It's a good thing we have all these non-medical doctor experts right here on this forum to diagnose diseases and perform remote autopsies.
 
Harold14370 said:
You all must have read a different story than the one I read. The one I read said the cause of her death had not been determined.
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Harold14370 said:
Yeah, it's too bad all those medical doctors are so ignorant. It's a good thing we have all these non-medical doctor experts right here on this forum to diagnose diseases and perform remote autopsies.
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A man walks into a local bank, pulls out a gun an opens fire. 12 people are shot, 4 of which are fatally wounded. In the hospital, all 4 people with critical wounds end up dying. Each one of them was fatally wounded by at least one bullet - a bullet which was fired from the criminal's gun. Two days pass after their deaths and an official autopsy has not yet been performed. There is no official cause of death...

Yet, I think we can all agree on what killed them. Medical doctor or not, we all know that the bullets are what killed them.

In this woman's case, her crash dieting and lack of calories were the bullets which struck her.
 
Or.....a combination of heart troubles and poor diet! Either way, stop splitting hairs here. STARVATION, when you're used to a calorie surplus diet (or any reasonably sensible diet for that matter) is ill advised at best and suicidal (as in this ladies case) at worst. END OF!
 
Harold14370 said:
Yeah, it's too bad all those medical doctors are so ignorant. It's a good thing we have all these non-medical doctor experts right here on this forum to diagnose diseases and perform remote autopsies.
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You mean to say you couldn't spot the obvious?

And FYI I have read alot about this. I used to have sevear anorexia and spent along time reading about why I should get better before I could make the choice to do so. Yes weight did/does mean that much to me that I have to question everything fully.

I have also had the fortune to know people (doctors, professors, psychiatrists, scientists, dietitions, nurses....)some who have made medical studies, done research, written books and those that have first hand experience of cases just like the bride written about in the first post, in addition I have known too many people who have died too young, and not all were underweight or even anorexic.

Weight loss at dramatic rates puts a pressure on the heart, fact. This can damage the heart, fact. This can cause problems such as heart failure, fact.
 
Anecdotal evidence doesn't prove much, as far as I'm concerned. You can look up Very Low Calorie Diet on various medical web sites without even finding heart failure as a possible side effect. What it will tell you is that it should only be used for obese people (check) who are under a doctor's care (check) and for a limited time (check). Of course, it would be assumed that a person under a doctor's care is following the doctor's advice, which we don't know in this case. We also know that obese people are at risk of various diseases whether they are on a VLCD or not. So the fact remains, you really don't know what happened.
 
Harold14370 said:
So the fact remains, you really don't know what happened.
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Neither do you, so why are you so confident that the people who aren't medically trained doctors are wrong?

Plus, doctors aren't always right, so that's a terrible way to judge who is right and who is wrong. If doctors were always right, they wouldn't be paying out fistfuls of money for insurance to cover their asses when they make mistakes...because they do mistakes and the entire industry knows it.

You don't have to go to medical school to know that eating 530 calories a day for nuuuuumerous days in a row is going to do terrible damage to your body and your health.
 
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ChefChiTown said:
Neither do you, so why are you so confident that the people who aren't medically trained doctors are wrong?

Plus, doctors aren't always right, so that's a terrible way to judge who is right and who is wrong. If doctors were always right, they wouldn't be paying out fistfuls of money for insurance to cover their asses when they make mistakes...because they do mistakes and the entire industry knows it.

You don't have to go to medical school to know that eating 530 calories a day for nuuuuumerous days in a row is going to do terrible damage to your body and your health.
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I don't know who you are getting your medical advice from. I'll stick with doctors. They may not always be right, but they have a better chance than whatever the alternative is.

These stories about the dangers of very low calorie diets are starting to look like an urban legend. I haven't seen any solid evidence at all. I'm beginning to feel like the Henry Fonda character in the movie Oxbow Incident. Whoa, wait a minute. Before we string these guys up, let's see some evidence.
 
Harold14370 said:
I don't know who you are getting your medical advice from. I'll stick with doctors. They may not always be right, but they have a better chance than whatever the alternative is.

These stories about the dangers of very low calorie diets are starting to look like an urban legend. I haven't seen any solid evidence at all. I'm beginning to feel like the Henry Fonda character in the movie Oxbow Incident. Whoa, wait a minute. Before we string these guys up, let's see some evidence.
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Yeah, I suppose the 1 MILLION+ Ethiopians that died of starvation* back in 1984 isn't quite evidence, now is it?

*Starvation is what happens when a human's body has a severe depletion of necessary nutrients that are needed in order to survive. If a person doesn't eat enough, AKA - doesn't have the proper caloric intake, they can die.
 
Admittedly this study was back in the 90s, but there is in fact a reason that people think VLCD can lead to loss of heart tissue:



Diet and body composition. Effect of very low calorie diets and exercise.

Donnelly JE, Jakicic J, Gunderson S.

Human Performance Laboratory, University of Nebraska, Kearney.
Abstract

Obesity is the presence of excess body fat and is associated with a variety of medical conditions which increase morbidity and mortality. Millions of individuals participate in weight-reduction programmes which include reduced calorie diets and may also include exercise. Very low calorie diets (VLCD) of 400 to 800 kcal/day appear attractive as they generally show an increase in weight loss from 0.2 to 0.5 kg/week found with the traditional diet to 1.5 to 2.0 kg/week. Early use of very low calorie diets with poor quality protein and loose medical supervision resulted in about 60 deaths, many of which were attributed to loss of lean body mass and in particular, cardiac muscle atrophy. Although current very low calorie diets are presumed safe, concern regarding preservation of lean body mass (LBM) remains. Investigators have used exercise to slow the depletion of lean body mass during very low calorie diets; however, the results are not conclusive. A host of different methodologies and questionable documentation and design of exercise protocols precludes a definitive statement for the benefits of exercise during very low calorie diets for the purpose of LBM retention.
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Hey, a view point from the UK....okay? Your metabolism likes constants....FACT! feed it too much too quickly and it stores the excess glycogen (energy) which turns to fat. Feed it too little and it burns the excess glycogen (fat) as fuel. Once it becomes used to a deficit it slows (hence plateaus). Starve it and it will take the easiest processable fuel available to it in order to function. Unfortunately that generally means catabolism of muscles. ANY muscles! I don't have a PHd or hold a doctorate but, 18 years in the fitness industry has taught me that you CAN NOT GENERALISE. We are ALL individuals. We ALL possess strengths and weaknesses in both body and soul. This poor lady obviously had a heart not strong enough to withstand the deficit of nutrients. Bottom line is this, severe dieting MUST be done ONLY AFTER A CLEAN BILL OF HEALTH. That said, anyone who considers starvation as a justifyable means of dieting is IMO mentally unstable! The risks are just too great!
 
Harold14370 said:
Anecdotal evidence doesn't prove much, as far as I'm concerned. You can look up Very Low Calorie Diet on various medical web sites without even finding heart failure as a possible side effect. What it will tell you is that it should only be used for obese people (check) who are under a doctor's care (check) and for a limited time (check). Of course, it would be assumed that a person under a doctor's care is following the doctor's advice, which we don't know in this case. We also know that obese people are at risk of various diseases whether they are on a VLCD or not. So the fact remains, you really don't know what happened.
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Very low calorie diets (the ones people live off) are not as low as the anorexic diet this bride and others die from, its about half of what a "very low calorie" diet intake is considered to be, infact its less then half.

I may not know what happened but I know of people in similar situations who have died (too many infact) and I also have common sense.
 
I can understand wanting to look good on your big day, but if her husband was willing to marry her for how she looked to begin with, then she shouldn't have gone so over the top.

That diet is ridiculous. If anyone suggested it to me, I'd laugh at them.
 
What is sad is those stupid medifast meals are doing the same thing, people eating only 900 calories a day, weather you are a 120 pound female or 340 pound male.... you get 900 calories a day. And people believe because they see "doctors" on the commercials that they are endorsed by doctors. What is funny is that yes... many of them are "doctors" but they are not MEDICAL doctors, they could have a PhD in art and still call themselves doctors and people believe this crap.

I did it the wrong way before (500-700 calories a day) and I never learned anything and I got just as fat, but even fatter than before. Now, I eat 1,400 or more calories a day and am losing weight just fine. You don't need to be hungry or starve your body to lose weight.
 
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