Man dies after drinking three litres of cola a day

A 30-year-old Briton died after he drank three litres of cola every day, causing his lungs to swell to four times the normal weight. His mother said the man "drank absolutely excessively since he was 10 years old".

According to the Daily Mail, Paul Inman of Haworth, West Yorkshire, would go out to buy the drink up to three times a day, and would also drink glasses of water to quench his thirst, the Bradford hearing was told.

But the huge quantities of cola drinks caused his lungs to swell to four times the normal weight, and the man died in his sleep.

Inman was found dead in his bedroom by a care worker, who was checking on him one morning in March 2012.

Detectives investigated the sudden death but found no suspicious circumstances.

Inman never stayed still and care staff had to keep his cigarettes so he would not smoke 20 an hour.

When he was 17, Inman was diagnosed with schizophrenia but when his case was reviewed in 2008, doctors diagnosed that he suffered from Asperger Syndrome - a form of autism.

A post-mortem examination found that Inman's lungs were three to four times the weight they should have been, pathologist Deirdre Mckenna said.

She ruled out the cause of that being epilepsy and a heart attack and put it down instead to his excessive drinking.

He was already known to have had low sodium levels because of the volume of fluids that he drank.

His mother said after hearing the doctor's report: "I've said all this time the cause of it was he drank excessively, absolutely excessively. He had done since he was 10 years old. We used to say he had a self-destruct button."

The inquest recorded a verdict that Inman died of natural causes.