Skip to main content
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}
}

Related cases

High ChatGPT (reported)

Vietnam: Hanoi doctor says a man self-treated a cough for three months with drugs ChatGPT suggested before a lung tumour was found

In a report published on 6 November 2025 by Suc khoe & Doi song, the newspaper of Vietnam's Ministry of Health, a doctor at Hanoi Lung Hospital described a male patient with a prolonged cough and mild breathlessness who had read online and asked ChatGPT. According to the doctor, ChatGPT suggested a diagnosis of chronic bronchitis and recommended montelukast and a corticosteroid inhaler, which the man bought and used for three months because his symptoms seemed to ease. When he reached hospital his cough had worsened, he had lost 5 kg and was coughing up a little blood, and a chest CT showed a tumour in the right lung that had invaded the pleura. The doctor said earlier examination could have found it at a localised stage with a much better prognosis, and that his confidence in the AI prescription made him miss that window. The event date and the patient's later course are not reported.

Medium ChatGPT

Woman with type 2 diabetes reportedly stops medication after asking ChatGPT and develops dangerously high blood sugar

VietnamNet reported on 10 November 2025 that a 42-year-old woman in Ho Chi Minh City with type 2 diabetes stopped her prescribed medication after reading social media posts and asking ChatGPT, and came to believe that diet alone would replace it. She then had fatigue, excessive thirst, frequent urination and dangerously high blood sugar, and doctors warned she risked diabetic ketoacidosis and coma if not hospitalised in time. The article does not quote the ChatGPT reply.

Critical ChatGPT

Florida pastor's lawsuit alleges ChatGPT told him for weeks his symptoms were not dangerous before a near-fatal pulmonary embolism

Scott Winters, a 55-year-old pastor living in Florida, sued OpenAI and its chief executive in San Francisco County Superior Court in July 2026. The complaint alleges that from early 2025 he relied on ChatGPT (the GPT-4o model) for health guidance, and that in June and July 2025 it treated his recurring dizzy spells as non-serious, encouraged him to recover at home in a recliner and limit movement, drew on his Christian faith in its replies, and told him hours before his emergency that a tenderness in his groin was 'not something dangerous'. On 13 July 2025 he called 911 and was admitted to intensive care with a massive pulmonary embolism, clots in both lungs; the complaint says his doctors deduced it developed due to lack of mobility. He survived and says he lost his job, ministry and home. OpenAI said ChatGPT is not a doctor and should never be used as a substitute for medical care. The allegations are unproven and no ruling has been reported.

Medium ChatGPT (reported)

VnExpress says a Hanoi man stopped a prescribed drug after ChatGPT warned of corneal harm and his condition worsened; his doctor calls that harm extremely rare

VnExpress reported on 11 September 2025 that a 38-year-old man in Hanoi, prescribed medication for erectile dysfunction, asked ChatGPT about the drug, saw that it said the drug causes corneal complications, and decided not to take it. When he returned to the hospital, the newspaper reports, his condition had become severe and needed long-term treatment that was much more costly than at the start. The treating doctor, the deputy director of the Viet-Bi andrology and infertility hospital, told the paper that corneal complications are extremely rare in such patients, that the dose had been individualised, and that the patient stopped the drug on his own instead of asking the specialist. VnExpress repeated the case in a feature on 26 November 2025. The chatbot's exact wording and the dates of the events are not reported.

If you or someone you know is struggling, free and confidential support is available. Find a helpline near you at Signpost.

Back to all incidents