Bride-to-Be Dies After Crash Dieting

(MYFOX NATIONAL) - A British bride-to-be has died after going on a 525-calorie-a-day crash diet.

Andrew Smith found his fiancee Samantha Clowe, 34, after she collapsed and died of heart failure at their home in Leeds, UK, on June 28. Clowe had lost 42 pounds in just 11 weeks while on the LighterLife diet . Before starting the diet, Clowe weighed 244 pounds, according to the Telegraph .

"She said she wanted respect at work and didn't want to be a fat bride," Clowe's mother, Barbara, said. "She was happy to go on it and I think she wanted to surprise me by showing me how much weight she'd lost."

The exact cause of death has not been established. But pathologist Dr. Alfredo Walker said, "It may be related to her low calorie diet and weight loss."

The LighterLife diet, which restricts people's calories to 530 calories a day for 12 weeks, has been creating controversy in Britain after another woman died from heart failure in 2006 after losing weight on the plan. The diet calls for participants to see their doctor before starting the diet; eat food provided by the diet plan like soups, snack bars and shakes; and attend weekly support group meetings

A LighterLife spokesman said that Clowe's "health may have already been compromised."

"We were very sad to hear the news about Samantha. The coroner said Samantha was clinically obese, which increased the risk of cardiac death," he said.

But Clowe's family maintains it was the diet that killed her. "I blame the diet," Clowe's sister Pauline Nash said.

The American Dietetic Association recommends losing weight at an average rate of a half-pound to pound a week. Losing weight faster than this proves difficult to keep off.

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