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Man suffers psychosis after eating sodium bromide at ChatGPT's suggestion [1]
['Rob Beschizza']
Date: 2025-08-15
I might ask ChatGPT to improve a regular expression or remind me how null coalescing operators work. It usually does a fine job! But I have no plans to ask it for nutritional substitutes for table salt, then eat sodium bromide at its suggestion until I go mad. [Ars Technica]
Three months later, the man showed up at his local emergency room. His neighbor, he said, was trying to poison him. Though extremely thirsty, the man was paranoid about accepting the water that the hospital offered him, telling doctors that he had begun distilling his own water at home and that he was on an extremely restrictive vegetarian diet. He did not mention the sodium bromide or the ChatGPT discussions. His distress, coupled with the odd behavior, led the doctors to run a broad set of lab tests, revealing multiple micronutrient deficiencies, especially in key vitamins. But the bigger problem was that the man appeared to be suffering from a serious case of "bromism." That is, an excess amount of the element bromine had built up in his body.
Bromism is no walk in the park. The rashes were visible symptoms; the psychological consequences once accounted for between 5%-10% of psychiatric admissions.
There are no specific antidotes or protocols for bromide poisoning of the body. Increased intake of regular salt and water, which increases the flow of the related chloride ion through the body, is one way of flushing out the bromide. Furosemide may help aid urinary excretion in individuals with renal impairment or where bromide toxicity is severe. In one case, hemodialysis was used to reduce bromide's half-life to 1.38 h, dramatically improving the patient's condition.
Nate Anderson reported a way to wreck yourself on bromines without trying too hard: drinks such as Coca-Cola contained them until a ban was finally imposed in 2024. 2-4 liters a day was enough to send one man to the emergency room, and he didn't get better until put on hemodialysis.
Update: Perfectly-timed from The Onion: Man Who Drinks 5 Diet Cokes Per Day Hoping Doctors Working On Cure For Whatever He's Getting
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