Death by bok choy? Not quite, but eating way too much put one woman in a coma

Can eating veggies kill you? Not quite, but an elderly Chinese woman's bok choy binge ended with her going into a life-threatening coma, according to Msbnc.com.

The 88-year-old went to an emergency room here in the city last summer when she was unable to swallow or walk, according to a report in the New England Journal of Medicine.

She’d apparently been eating between 2 and 3 pounds of bok choy - also called Chinese white cabbage - daily for several months. The reason? The woman thought eating the equivalent of two or three large heads each day would help keep her diabetes in check.

New York University School of Medicine's Dr. Michael Chu, a resident who took care of her, reported that she’d crunched her way through the boy choy with no seasoning, not even a pinch of salt.

"I am not sure if she had trouble consuming so much bok choy," Chu said. "It never came up that it was difficult to do so."

The woman, who contracted a severe case of hypothyroidism, was diagnosed with a thyroid-induced coma that required potent anti-inflammatory medicines and injections of a synthetic thyroid hormone to treat. The bok choy overload was dangerous since this particular vegetable contains an enzyme that can hinder the thyroid’s ability to function. Cooking the bok choy would have deactivated the enzyme.

The happy ending? She recovered and went to live in a nursing home.

nydailynews.com