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NOPE
Medium reported severity

Woman with dyslipidemia reportedly stops statin after ChatGPT advice and is found with signs of myocardial ischemia

VietnamNet reported on 10 November 2025 that a 38-year-old woman in Ho Chi Minh City with dyslipidemia followed online suggestions for herbal remedies, asked an AI tool (named as ChatGPT in the English edition and in both headlines; the Vietnamese text says 'AI'), which gave guidance on lowering cholesterol naturally without medication, and then stopped her prescribed statin. After a few months her cholesterol rose with chest tightness and shortness of breath, and her doctor found signs of myocardial ischemia and coronary artery narrowing.

AI system
ChatGPT (reported)
OpenAI
Occurred
Event date unknown
Reported
10 November 2025
Event location
Vietnam
What the AI did
Communicated with the person
Reported harm
Medical DeteriorationTreatment Disruption
Whose AI use
Their own AI use
Setting
Health
Evidence
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources, 1 underlying account
2 claims: 2 reported. 4 open questions
People reported harmed
1 person

AI system as recorded: ChatGPT

Reported harm

The woman reportedly developed chest tightness, shortness of breath and signs of myocardial ischemia and coronary narrowing after stopping statin treatment.

What remains unknown

  • The event date is not given. A 2025 start is inferred from the 10 November 2025 article date and is not stated by the source. The statin was stopped 'a few months' before the follow-up (gdv-1 line 43) with no calendar anchor, and the duration of statin use before stopping is not stated.
  • The exact ChatGPT text is not quoted, and online herbal-remedy suggestions preceded it.
  • The article does not say whether coronary narrowing preceded the statin stop or how the woman recovered.
  • The English edition names ChatGPT for the second woman while the Vietnamese body says "AI".

What the evidence supports

AI involvement: reported. VietnamNet reports the woman's ChatGPT query, her medication stop and the clinical findings with a treating doctor quoted. The account is unverified and the chat was not seen. The Vietnamese text of this passage says 'AI' rather than ChatGPT; ChatGPT is named in the English edition and in the headline.

2 claims: 2 reported. What the statuses mean

Reported A 38-year-old woman in Ho Chi Minh City with dyslipidemia, prescribed a statin, followed online suggestions for "natural" herbal remedies, asked an AI tool that the article names as ChatGPT (the Vietnamese text says 'AI'), which gave advice on naturally lowering cholesterol without medication, and then stopped her treatment.

Causal attribution. The article states ChatGPT gave the advice, and also that she had first heard herbal-remedy suggestions online. The Vietnamese text says she used "AI" and the English edition names ChatGPT; the headline of both names ChatGPT.

  • vietnamnet.vn(opens in new tab) supports · English
    To confirm, she asked ChatGPT and received advice on “naturally lowering cholesterol” without medication.
  • vietnamnet.vn(opens in new tab) supports · Vietnamese
    chị M.H. tra cứu bằng AI và nhận được hướng dẫn “giảm mỡ máu tự nhiên” mà không cần thuốc
Reported After a few months without treatment her cholesterol levels rose sharply with chest tightness and shortness of breath, and a follow-up examination found signs of myocardial ischemia and coronary artery narrowing.

Causal attribution. The article calls the findings consequences of prolonged uncontrolled cholesterol levels. The findings are attributed to her doctor. The article describes the quoted hospital doctor as the treating doctor of both patients.

  • vietnamnet.vn(opens in new tab) supports · English
    After a few months of stopping her treatment, her cholesterol levels soared, accompanied by chest tightness and shortness of breath.
  • vietnamnet.vn(opens in new tab) supports · English
    her doctor discovered signs of myocardial ischemia and coronary artery narrowing

Sources

2 sources inspected, from 1 underlying account. Sources that repeat one account do not corroborate each other.

How the sources were read, and where the events happened

Vietnamese original read by an AI model without human translation review. The English edition (s2) is VietnamNet's own English version of the same article and was used for wording; locators from both editions match the article text. Applies to s1.

English edition of the same VietnamNet article (published 10/11/2025 15:31 GMT+07:00). Applies to s2.

Event countries: Vietnam. Affected-person countries: Vietnam. Court countries: Unknown.

VietnamNet gives the patient's residence as a ward of Ho Chi Minh City. The article does not state where the hospital is or where the ChatGPT conversation took place.

Reviewed for publication 2026-09-29: VietnamNet reports the woman's ChatGPT query, her medication stop and the clinical findings with a treating doctor quoted. The account is unverified and the chat was not seen. The Vietnamese text of this passage says 'AI' rather than ChatGPT; ChatGPT is named in the English edition and in the headline. The event date is not stated by the source, so the case is published undated.

People reported harmed in this case

1 person

1 AI participant · 0 other people harmed

One woman is reported harmed.

Counted once within this case. The same person may appear in other cases. This count does not establish AI causation.

Cite this case

Compiled per our published methodology: verification statuses, sourcing standards, and corrections process.

APA

NOPE. (2026). Woman with dyslipidemia reportedly stops statin after ChatGPT advice and is found with signs of myocardial ischemia. AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2025-ho-chi-minh-city-dyslipidemia-woman-stops-statin-chatgpt-ischemia-signs

BibTeX

@misc{2025_ho_chi_minh_city_dyslipidemia_woman_stops_statin_chatgpt_ischemia_signs,
  title = {Woman with dyslipidemia reportedly stops statin after ChatGPT advice and is found with signs of myocardial ischemia},
  author = {NOPE},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {AI incidents},
  url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2025-ho-chi-minh-city-dyslipidemia-woman-stops-statin-chatgpt-ischemia-signs}
}

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