One of the side effects of taking health recommendations from AI is its bizarre and astonishing ideas. Reflecting the truth of this saying, a man finding a cure for a simple table salt replacement ended up afflicting a disease from the 19th century. This shocking case of misinformation was recorded in the Annals of Internal Medicine on the 5th of August. In an attempt to find a replacement for sodium chloride in his diet the 60-years old ended up using sodium bromide as ChatGPT suggested it as an alternative.
Sodium bromide is used in cleaning and maintaining swimming pools. It can be dangerous to health, and as this case suggests, may lead to serious illness. The man afflicted with the rare bromine disease was searching for a substitute to replace his common table salt after reading about the harmful effects. Though he had no prior medical records after consuming sodium bromide for three months, sourcing it from the internet to completely remove table salt from his diet.
After suspecting issues with his health, he rushed to the hospital and told the doctors that his neighbour was poisoning him. The results were as shocking as they could get. The lab tests showed a case of abnormal levels of electrolytes, hyperchloremia, and a negative anion gap that made the doctors think it was a rare case of bromism. Within 24 hours of detection, the patient’s condition went from bad to worse as he started experiencing paranoia, with both visual and auditory hallucinations. Further examinations gave more proof of Bromism as doctors learned he has also been experiencing insomnia, fatigue, facial acne, subtle ataxia, and thirst.
This disease is not only rare but also historic. It affected people in the early 19th and 20th centuries, when using sodium bromide for treating anxiety and headaches was common. When it was prevalent, over 8 per cent of cases in psychiatric hospital wards were filled with cases related to it. After the US Food and Drug Administration’s advisory to remove sodium bromide from products, its occurrence became rare. It’s a slow-reacting drug, and its accumulation in the body leads to dermatological, psychiatric, and neurological issues. The case shows that though AI can be useful in certain cases, it can be inaccurate and may lead to a similar series of events harmful to a normal person.
The man suffering from Bromism has been brought back to normal after electrolyte balance therapy and other medical interventions, and after three weeks in the hospital, he has been discharged.
