PhD student dies after using Chinese herbal medicine to cure upset stomach

The remedy caused Ling Wang's liver and other organs to shut down.

The 25-year-old was taken to hospital but slipped into a coma and died. She was too ill to tell doctors which medicine she had taken, and experts found it hard to analyse.

But after hearing evidence from three specialists, coroner Karen Graham concluded there could be no other reason for the death of Chinese-born Miss Wang, a Newcastle University PhD student.

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All other possible causes, including paracetamol overdose and infection, were ruled out, the Newcastle-upon-Tyne inquest heard.

It is not known where Miss Wang was given the medicine.

Doctors said it may have been a remedy called Jin Bu Huan, which is available as a tea or a pill and is said to have painkilling properties. Studies have shown it can affect the liver.

Dr Stephen Stuart, a consultant pathologist at the city's Freeman Hospital where Miss Wang died, said: "When I first met Ling she was extremely unwell.

"Her blood pressure was low but her heartbeat was very quick and she was not able to hold a conversation. She became comatose. We suspected it was a Chinese herbal remedy of some type."

He added: "Chinese remedies are often a mixture of different compounds. No treatment we tried had any impact.

"There was simply nothing-we could have done for her."

After the coroner recorded a misadventure verdict, friends paid tribute to the woman they knew as Carrie. An identical twin, she came to Newcastle to study seven years ago and graduated in engineering.

Lisa Short, 27, of Monkseaton, knew Miss Wang for more than four years after meeting her through Jesmond parish church in Newcastle.

She said: "I was working as a parish assistant. There was a weekly meeting for the international students at a cafe called the Globe and I would see her regularly.

"We would eat chocolate together. She loved chocolate, she would eat far too many chocolate biscuits.

"It was always lovely to be with her. She played the guitar and loved to play games.

"She was the kind of girl who was so sweet and so happy. Everybody who knows her is devastated."

Xiaoyan Feng, 27, of Gateshead, said: "She was such a good friend. She would go out of her way to help others. She was a bridesmaid at my wedding even though she was working-hard because she was in the middle-of her thesis."

Ramzi Adcock, of High Heaton, Newcastle, a parish assistant at the church, added: "It seems such a waste. I think everybody is still trying to come to terms with her loss, trying to make sense of this tragedy.

"She was the life and soul of the party, very warm and totally committed to her friends."

Miss Wang's death devastated her family in China. Her father flew from Bejing for the inquest.