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Congressman’s Wife Died After Taking Herbal Weight-Loss Remedy

A coroner said Lori McClintock’s death was ultimately down to the white mulberry leaf’s effects.

A congressman’s wife died after taking a herbal remedy used for weight loss, a coroner ruled. Lori McClintock, the wife of Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA), died in December 2021 from dehydration caused by gastroenteritis—an intestinal infection—which was itself triggered by “adverse effects of white mulberry leaf ingestion,” a Sacramento County coroner’s report said, according to KHN. The plant is widely considered safe to take and is used as a herbal remedy for a variety of ailments, including high cholesterol and diabetes. Tom McClintock, who represents California’s 4th Congressional District, found his 61-year-old wife unresponsive at their home after returning from a vote in Washington, D.C. the night before. At his wife’s funeral, Rep. McClintock said she had been fine when he spoke to her the day before coming home, and that she’d told a friend “she was on a roll” at a new real-estate job. He added that she had recently joined a gym and was “carefully dieting.”