Man develops rare condition after ChatGPT query over stopping eating salt

A US medical journal has warned against using ChatGPT for health information after a man developed a rare condition following an interaction with the chatbot about removing table salt from his diet. An article in the Annals of Internal Medicine reported a case in which a 60-year-old man developed bromism, also known as bromide toxicity, after consulting ChatGPT. The article described bromism as a "well-recognised" syndrome in the early 20th century that was thought to have contributed to almost one in 10 psychiatric admissions at the time. The patient told doctors that after reading about the negative effects of sodium chloride, or table salt, he consulted ChatGPT about eliminating chloride from his diet and started taking sodium bromide over a three-month period. This was despite reading that "chloride can be swapped with bromide, though likely for other purposes, such as cleaning".