50 years after his sudden death, new study suggest that Bruce Lee may have died due to a condition called hyponatraemia

Nearly 50 years after Bruce Lee’s sudden demise, new reports have emerged that the actor and martial arts icon may have died due to a kidney ailment called hyponatraemia.

On July 20, 1973, Lee passed away in Hong Kong. According to the authorities, cerebral oedema or simply put, swelling of the brain, was the cause of death.

According to a recent study by a team of kidney specialists in Spain, actor Bruce Lee had ‘multiple risk factors for hyponatraemia,’ or an abnormally low sodium concentration in the blood.

The researchers cited the actor’s chronic fluid intake, use of marijuana (which makes people thirstier) as known factors that may have hampered his kidney’s ability to function. This also included use of medications, alcohol consumption and a history of kidney injuries.

The study was published in the December 2022 edition of the Clinical Kidney Journal.

‘We hypothesize that Bruce Lee died from a specific form of kidney dysfunction: the inability to excrete enough water to maintain water homeostasis… . This may lead to hyponatraemia, cerebral oedema and death within hours if excess water intake is not matched by water excretion in urine,’ the paper concludes.