Woman has heart attack after doing bogus 'soy sauce cleanse' – and desperate attempts to save her life by pumping water into her veins left the 39-year-old brain dead

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An American woman suffered permanent brain damage after she drank a liter of soy sauce in an attempt to 'cleanse her colon.'

A 39-year-old woman drank the condiment believing it would flush toxins from her body, recounted Dr Bernard on his medical YouTube channel Chubbyemu,

Instead, she ended up going into cardiac arrest and was left with irreversible nerve damage.  

Doctors at the hospital discovered that she had 200 grams of salt in her blood, which is five times the lethal dose.

They tried to bring the sodium levels in her blood - but the change was too rapid, which resulted in her being left brain dead.

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Dr Bernard discussed on his medical YouTube channel Chubbyemu the case of a 39-year-old woman who suffered permanent brain damage after she drank a liter of soy sauce in an attempt to 'cleanse her colon' (file image)

After drinking the soy sauce, her stomach started cramping and she ended up being rushed to the hospital after her husband found her unconscious. Pictured: Dr Bernard

According to CG's husband, Julio, she was already in poor health, having lost 25 pounds in the previous three weeks.

Over the last six months, she had begun eating a diet consisting only of white bread and canned fish, leaving her extremely deficient in vitamins and iron.

Prior to the incident, she had also been hospitalized for displaying signs of paranoid schizophrenia - which was not responding to medicine - and believed she was being poisoned by the government. 

During this time, CG found a video online that claimed drinking a liter of soy sauce in two hours could cleanse the body.

Dr Bernard, who discusses extraordinary medical cases on his YouTube channel, says the woman's heartbeat began racing, her stomach cramping and she felt a tingling sensation in her arms and legs.

She also resisted the urge to drink water, causing her to become severely dehydrated.  

Julio allegedly found her collapsed in their home and called 911. On the ride to the hospital, CG went into cardiac arrest.

Doctors discovered she was suffering from acute hypernatremia, which is when there is a high sodium presence in the blood.

Federal Dietary Guidelines recommend not consuming more than 2,300 milligrams, or 2.5 grams, of salt per day.  

Dr Bernard explains that a lethal dose of sodium is 40 grams. He says the liter of soy sauce CG drank contained 200 grams of salt, which is five times the lethal amount.  

He said the soy sauce cleanse is a hoax based on 'half-truths'.  

'The correct part is that wherever sodium is, water will flow towards it,' Dr Bernard says in the video.

Doctors determined she had acute hypernatremia, or a high sodium presence in the blood. A lethal dose of sodium is 40 grams and the liter of soy sauce CG drank contained 200 grams of salt, five times the lethal amount (file image)

'CG was told the soy sauce would stay in her colon. Toxin-filled water would then flow in and she'd be cleansed, but that's not how it happens.'

Anything we digest first passes through the stomach before reaching the intestines and the colon. 

Water flows toward sodium - so the soy sauce in CG's stomach started sucking water from her muscles and organs. 

This means her kidneys, heart and brain became dehydrated as the blood vessels shrank and deprived them of oxygen. 

Doctors pumped water mixed with glucose into her blood to try to dilute the massive quantities of salt. 

Over the next three days, the treatment seemed to be working, as CG drifted in and out consciousness.

However, on the fourth day, she was unable to speak, swallow or move her arms and legs. 

Doctors determined she had central pontine myelinolysis, a neurological disorder that occurs when nerve cells cannot properly transmit signals to each other.

The myelin sheath, an insulating barrier of fatty protein that protects the nerves, is destroyed in the middle of the brain stem, known as the pons. 

According to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, this occurs when there is a rapid change in the body's sodium levels, such as when there is a high level of sodium in the body that is corrected too quickly - like in CG's case.  

Doctors determined she had acute hypernatremia, or a high sodium presence in the blood. A lethal dose of sodium is 40 grams and the liter of soy sauce CG drank contained 200 grams of salt, five times the lethal amount (file image) 

The soy sauce in CG's stomach started sucking water from her muscles and organs and going towards her stomach. This eventually resulted in central pontine myelinolysis, a neurological disorder where nerve cells cannot properly transmit signals to each other

Dr Bernard believes she may have had undiagnosed celiac disease, an autoimmune disorder where the ingestion of gluten leads to damage in the small intestine. He says all the white bread she was eating may aggravated her disease, leading to her becoming delusional

Symptoms include confusion, problems swallowing, slurred speech, reduced alertness and paralysis, all experienced by CG.  

Dr Bernard says in most cases, if we drank as much soy sauce as CG did, we would end up vomiting.   

'CG had some quality to her that could separate her mind from drinking soy sauce,' he said.

He believes she had undiagnosed celiac disease, which is a genetic autoimmune disorder where the ingestion of gluten leads to damage in the small intestine. 

Dr Bernard says all the white bread she was eating on her restricted diet, despite her gluten sensitivity, may have aggravated her disease, which led to her becoming delusional and falling victim to the soy sauce colon cleanse hoax.