Woman May Have Permanent Brain Damage After Fruit Juice Diet: Report

Sheba Medical Center, in Tel Aviv. Screenshot/Googlemaps

A woman was admitted to a hospital in Israel suffering from severe malnutrition and possible permanent brain damage after three weeks on a diet of only fruit juice and water.

The unnamed woman in her forties weighed less than 90 pounds when she was admitted to Sheba Medical Center in Tel Aviv on March 29, reported news outlet Ha Hadashot 12.

According to the news outlet, she was put on the fruit juice and water only diet by an “alternative therapist.” The diet reportedly damaged her capacity to regulate the salts in her body.

Various fruit juice drinks. Pixabay

“There is still concern that irreversible brain damage may be caused by the diet,” reported Hadashot.

No qualifications are needed in Israel for someone to adopt the title of a dietary therapist, according to the news outlet.

Local media reports make no mention of the purpose of the diet, but fruit-only diets are sometimes used as a “detox” or as a way of reducing calories.

Some people swear by the health benefits of raw food diets: a whittled down version of a vegan diet that relies on uncooked vegetables, fruits and perhaps some supplements for nutrition.

YouTube Raw Food Star Ditches Diet

A YouTube star who found fame and fortune espousing the raw plant diet recently faced a backlash after she was caught eating fish and forced to admit that she had ditched the diet after her menstrual cycle stopped.

For the last six years, Yovana Mendoza Ayres has touted the benefits of a raw plant-only lifestyle together with a philosophy to “reveal your authentic self.”

But she has now been forced to admit that she has started to eat fish and eggs, along with cooked foods, as a result of health problems stretching back many years that caused her menstrual cycle to completely stop.

Ayres said that the problems started after a 25-day water only fast in 2014. She said that she felt fantastic after the fast, but that her menstrual cycle stopped for two years.