Thought Leadership
A 60-year-old man developed bromine poisoning three months after blindly following the AI’s dietary recommendations.
What began as a harmless attempt to reduce salt intake ended in involuntary psychiatric hospitalization for a 60-year-old man. The reason: he asked ChatGPT for alternatives to table salt and implemented the AI’s answers without further verification. This spectacular case has now been documented as a case study in the renowned journal Annals of Internal Medicine.
From salt reduction to bromine poisoning
The man originally just wanted to completely eliminate sodium chloride (common table salt) from his diet after reading about the negative effects of excessive salt consumption. Instead of consulting medical professionals, he consulted ChatGPT – with fatal consequences.
The AI mentioned sodium bromide as a possible salt substitute. While this information is technically correct, it refers to industrial applications such as cleaning agents, but not to human consumption. ChatGPT failed to explicitly warn of the health risks or ask why the user needed the information.
Symptoms of a forgotten disease
After three months of the self-prescribed diet, the patient went to the emergency room – claiming that his neighbor was poisoning him. The doctors diagnosed classic symptoms of bromine poisoning:
- New facial acne and cherry angiomas
- Exhaustion and insomnia
- Excessive thirst and coordination disorders
- Skin rash
- Increasing paranoia
- Auditory and visual hallucinations
An escape attempt by the patient ultimately led to involuntary psychiatric hospitalization.
Bromism: a relic of times gone by
Bromine poisoning, medically known as bromism, was widespread between 1880 and 1930. At that time, sedatives, sleep aids and even over-the-counter headache tablets contained bromide compounds, which were considered safer than other alternatives.
The problem: bromide is only excreted very slowly. If taken repeatedly, it accumulates in the body and leads to toxic concentrations. Severe cases have ended in psychosis, tremor or even coma.
Bromism was often misdiagnosed as alcoholism or a nervous breakdown until doctors realized that affected patients were taking bromide-containing “nerve tonics” on a daily basis. In 1975, the US government finally restricted the use of bromides in over-the-counter medications.
