Culture

Coroner Cites Coca-Cola in New Zealand Woman's Death

Apparently drank more than two gallons of the stuff per day

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A New Zealand coroner has linked the death of a 31-year-old woman to her Coca-Cola addiction.

Natasha Harris died Feb. 25, 2010 from a cardiac arrhythmia, according to a 19-page coroner's report obtained by ABCNews.com. And while Harris, a mother of eight from Invercargill, New Zealand, was known to smoke heavily and skip multiple meals, coroner David Crerar concluded that the sugar and caffeine she got by drinking more than 2.6 gallons of Coca-Cola Classic per day was "a substantial factor" in her death.

"When all of the available evidence is considered, were it not for the consumption of very large quantities of Coke by Natasha Harris, it is unlikely that she would have died when she died and how she died," Crerar wrote in his report.