Brief Outline: A healthy 41-year-old woman recently died in Pune after consuming bottle gourd juice, reinforcing the need to exercise caution while having fluid of vegetables.

Facts Check: True

What is Viral in India? 

PUNE: A healthy 41-year-old woman with no underlying medical condition recently died in the city after consuming bottle gourd juice, reinforcing the need to exercise caution while having fluid of vegetables.
“She developed severe vomiting and loose motion within half-an-hour of having a glass of bottle gourd juice in the morning on June 12. Her condition worsened very fast over the next three days. She succumbed to complications around midnight on June 16,” said a family friend.

After running for 5km in the morning on June 12, the deceased woman had bottle gourd juice at 9.30am — her daily routine — before leaving for office. “She vomited in the car on the way to her office and had to return home immediately. Later, she had severe loose motion,” he said.

She also developed breathlessness, pain in abdomen and had an episode of convulsion. She was rushed to a private hospital in Baner around 1.30pm. “By the time she was moved there, she had lost consciousness and had a cardiac arrest,” .

Facts Check Analysis: The bottle gourd, also called lauki, ghia or dhudhi is believed to be full of health benefits according to the ancient Indian system of medicine called Ayurveda.

The news started after a healthy 41 years old women named Gauri, from Pune with no underlying medical condition recently died in the city after consuming bottle gourd juice. This lead to the discussion to exercise caution before taking gourd juice.

As reported by timesofindia, there have been many other similar cases across the country. Times of India (archived here) has linked the death of a healthy woman in Pune to drinking a glass of bottle gourd juice.

Note: As per social media: Gourd juice is helpful to curb high blood pressure and healthy heart

A high percentage of the population drinks gourd juice.

Gauri was from Pune and a software consultant and did not have any disease and had a healthy routine every day from doing exercise to drinking healthy juice.

Baba Ramdev warned on lauki, that it should never be drank bitter and this can lead to death.

Doctors have stated that even as the incident was very unfortunate, there should not be panic with regards to consumption of the vegetables belonging to the Cucurbits, also known as Cucurbitaceae, family, including bottle gourd and cucumber.

Dr Sheetal Dadphale, from Ruby Hall Clinic, a well known gastroenterologist, said, “It is a well-known thing in medical literature that vegetables in the Cucurbitaceae gourd family, at times, can be a little poisonous. Consumption of these poisonous vegetables in any form can result in nausea, vomiting, vomiting blood and even death.”