On July 20, 1973, nearly 50 years ago, actor and martial arts magnate Bruce Lee suddenly died in Hong Kong. Officials at the time, termed cerebral edema, brain swelling, the reason behind his death.
Conspiracy Theories earlier suggested that he might have died of poison, or heat stroke, or perhaps Chinese gangsters may have somehow intoxicated him.
However, according to new research, the reason behind Bruce Lee’s death was his “kidney’s inability to excrete excess water.”
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Conducted by kidney specialists in Spain, the study was published in the December 22’ edition of the Clinical Kidney Journal.
They termed hyponatremia (abnormally low sodium concentration in blood) as the possible reason for his death, citing the actor’s “chronic intake, use of marijuana (increased thirst), prescription drugs, alcohol intake, and injuries to the organ” as possible reasons of his death.
“We hypothesize that Bruce Lee died from a specific form of kidney dysfunction: the inability to excrete enough water to maintain water homeostasis…. This may lead to hyponatremia, cerebral edema, and death within hours if excess water intake is not matched by water excretion in urine,” the paper concludes. “Given that hyponatremia is frequent, as is found in up to 40% of hospitalized persons and may cause death due to excessive water ingestion even in young healthy persons, there is a need for a wider dissemination of the concept that excessive water intake can kill.”
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The sudden death of Lee has been the center of speculation for decades, with some hypothesizing that the actor was assassinated. A book is written in 2018, “Bruce Lee: A Life,” put forward another hypothesis that he died of head exhaustion, but according to the current study, the temperatures that day were not abnormally high.
To stay fit and in shape, he had reportedly been living on a near-liquid diet of juices.