Did drinking too much water really kill Bruce Lee?

Celebrated martial artist and actor Bruce Lee’s death was a result of drinking too much water, a group of researchers claimed in a new study.

A new study released after over 50 years of celebrated martial artist and actor Bruce Lee’s death has claimed that the cause of his demise was cerebral oedema or brain swelling, which earlier was thought to be a reaction to a painkiller he had taken. However, it is now found that the cause was “kidney’s inability to excrete excess water” that led to his untimely death at the age of 32.

The study was carried out by a team of renal doctors in Spain, and it was released last year in the Clinical Kidney Journal’s December 2022 issue.

The specialists proposed that the kidney’s inability to excrete excess water killed Bruce Lee. They added that Lee possessed “multiple risk factors for hyponatraemia” (low level of sodium in blood). The study’s authors even mentioned that Lee was most probably consuming high quantities of liquid due to his fluid diet, which consisted of a lot of juices and protein drinks, and the use of marijuana that induces increased thirst.

According to the study’s findings, Lee had a number of risk factors that made him more likely to develop hyponatraemia due to disruption of the mechanisms that control both water intake and excretion known as water homeostasis.

The study was conducted by a group of kidney specialists in Spain and was published last year in December 2022 edition of the Clinical Kidney Journal.

“Ironically, Lee made famous the quote ‘Be water my friend’, but excess water appears to have ultimately killed him.”