- 6/30/2025
The sudden death of 42-year-old actor Shefali Jariwala is under investigation. Police found anti-aging and skin glowing medications at her residence. Doctors suspect a drop in blood pressure levels may have led to cardiac arrest. Jariwala's history of epilepsy since age 15 is also being considered as a potential factor. The post-mortem report is awaited, with doctors calling for forensic analysis.
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00:00What killed Shefali Jarriwala?
00:11Anti-aging medicines, low BP, a deadly mix?
00:21Do anti-aging meds have fatal side effects?
00:30Can epilepsy lead to sudden death?
00:33Top focus at 5.30.
00:38Several key details have emerged in the investigation into the sudden death of 42-year-old actor Shefali Jarriwala.
00:45Police have found two boxes containing anti-aging and skin-glowing medications,
00:49including glutathione tablets and vials that hit residents.
00:52While post-mortem results are awaited, officials confirm they're examining all possible angles,
00:57including the side effects of the medication and the fact that she was fasting.
01:02Here's more.
01:02The ashes of Shefali Jarriwala is being immersed in sea by her family members.
01:16The 42-year-old Big Boss contestant succumbed to a cardiac arrest on Friday, June 27th.
01:23The autopsy has been completed, but the cause of death is still unknown.
01:28The opinion reserved.
01:29Doctors have said they want a forensic analysis.
01:33Investigators are waiting for toxicology and histopathology reports.
01:40Doctors at Mumbai's Cooper Hospital suspect the death could be because of drop in blood pressure levels.
01:47Cardiac arrest being cited as a possible reason.
01:50But what caused the cardiac arrest is the big question here.
01:54Was it the fact that she was epileptic?
01:56Epileptic?
01:58Shefali Zarriwala had earlier opened up on her history with epilepsy,
02:02which she had been suffering from since the age of 15.
02:06Medical professionals have said that sudden, unexplained death in a condition like epilepsy is possible.
02:12It is rare, but it can lead to fatal heart complications.
02:16Epilepsy can rarely cause the pseudep, which is sudden, unexpected, unexpected death in epilepsy patients.
02:25Yes.
02:26And incidence is rare.
02:27It is like 1 out of 1,000 people with epilepsy.
02:30But people who have uncontrolled epilepsy, like more frequent seizures, it can even affect 1 out of 150 people.
02:36Right.
02:36No, why it happens is if you look at epilepsy patients, they can have a seizure during sleep.
02:41And, you know, when there is seizure, just after seizure, there can be, you know, depression of the respiratory functions that can lead to cardiac arrest.
02:50Mumbai police has found anti-aging medication at the residence of Shefali Zarriwala.
02:56And her family members confirmed that Shefali Zarriwala had been taking this medication since many years, often without a prescription.
03:06The post-mortem report is still awaiting.
03:09With camera person Ajay, this is Divyesh Singh in Mumbai for India Today.
03:13Joining us live right now is Dr. Rahul Chawla, consultant, neurologist from the Institute of Brain and Spine.
03:20And Dr. Balbir Singh is the chairperson and head of cardiology, Max Healthcare.
03:24Thank you so much for your time.
03:25I'm also going to be connected by, with Dr. Satish Bhatia, who is a dermatologist.
03:30And just a bit from now, I'm going to begin by asking you, Dr. Chawla, you have spoken about the fact that these medicines aren't without risk.
03:38I've heard, in fact, from several dermatologists saying that, you know, these are antioxidants.
03:42Glutathione is an antioxidant.
03:45Yes, it leads to whitening of the skin and it's popular for that reason.
03:48But, you know, it can't kill at the end of the day.
03:51What could have possibly gone wrong?
03:52And I ask this question very responsibly from the point of view of the fact also.
03:57And keeping this in mind that the post-mortem report is still not out.
04:02Well, thank you for having me here.
04:04First of all, whatever glutathione or IV detox dribs, which are being talked about,
04:09these medications are not guidelines recommended.
04:14There have been no properly conducted trials or meta-analysis or randomized controlled trials,
04:21which show that these have any benefit whatsoever.
04:24Moreover, these have many adverse effects.
04:28Now, usually those adverse effects can be short-term, immediate or long-term.
04:32The long-term effects have not been shown on heart per se, but they do have some effects on liver and kidney health.
04:42But as immediate side effect, there can be anaphylactic reaction.
04:46The patient can have arrhythmia, hypotension and may go into sudden shock and that may lead to cardiac arrest.
04:54Now, what happened in this case might not be a possibility that the person in question had taken IV detox drip,
05:03followed by which she had hypotension, followed by which she has cardiac arrest.
05:06That is not clear at the moment.
05:08However, if the person was taking these kind of trips for some long time,
05:14and after some days the cardiac arrest has happened,
05:17then maybe we cannot link that with the cardiac arrest she had.
05:23So, we have to understand that there are immediate complications and there are long-term complications.
05:28Okay.
05:28You know, I will come back to you in a moment from now,
05:30because I want to also talk to you a little about the patient's medical history,
05:33which was epilepsy and that being linked to sudden death.
05:36But to you, Dr. Balbir Singh, you know, talk to us about what could have gone wrong here,
05:41because once the autopsy was done, the opinion was rather reserved.
05:46And the doctors communicated that they also want a forensics, you know, analysis to be done.
05:51And they are going to talk about what could have led to a death in a bit later, you know, when that result is out.
05:57I want to ask you, side effects of these medicines, a drop in the blood pressure levels,
06:02you know, the fact that she was fasting, but she still took those medications, including IV medication.
06:07Is that something that could have led to this cardiac arrest?
06:10The first thing is, we are not sure what caused the cardiac arrest.
06:16The autopsy report can tell us whether it was a heart attack or a cardiac arrhythmia which caused it.
06:22Second thing is that, who administered the IV dose?
06:25You know, we don't even know whether she received the IV injection or not.
06:29That is also uncertain.
06:31The vial was found, but no syringes or any injection marks would tell us whether she took that IV dose or not.
06:37But these medicines are unregulated, taken by, not prescribed by doctors,
06:44nobody would prescribe to have self-IV injections of these drugs, can cause arrhythmias.
06:49Some of them are toxins and taken over the counter medications, which can, which are not regulated.
06:56And can be very toxic and cause cardiac arrhythmias and sudden cardiac arrest.
06:59So there can be multiple reasons that it could have happened.
07:02But certainly, a cardiac cause is the commonest cause if it is not a poisoning or a toxic thing which happened.
07:12So it will come to light what happened actually with this forensic analysis.
07:15And the heart autopsy should give us some clues what exactly happened.
07:20You know, I also want you to tell us a little about low blood pressure and whether it can actually lead to death.
07:25It is very unlikely.
07:27So low blood pressure will happen because of a heart condition.
07:30So it won't happen that you take, even if you take a bigger dose of blood pressure medicine
07:35and the blood pressure won't drop so much that you die.
07:38So it is very unlikely that such a thing has happened that she took some medicines which dropped the blood pressure and she died.
07:44Something has to happen with the heart to cause such a fall in blood pressure.
07:47Right.
07:48You know, the fact, Dr. Rahul, that she was in fact suffering from epilepsy from the age of 15
07:53is something that one can't really, you know, in cases like this where death, you know, sudden deaths due to epilepsy
08:00or epileptic events are not really common but are rare in that sense.
08:06But it's possible, isn't it?
08:09Yeah, obviously it's possible.
08:10Yes.
08:10So what happens is that patients who have uncontrolled epilepsy, who are not taking their anti-seizure medications timely.
08:17So we have an entity which we call it as SUDEP.
08:19So sudden unexpected death in epilepsy patients.
08:22Yes.
08:22So although it's a rare entity, but not that rare.
08:26And also patients who are not taking their medications timely, who might be having some abnormal discharges in the brain
08:33in the inter-ital period and these patients may have this entity.
08:38So what happens is that patients usually alone at night, patient might have a seizure
08:44and during the seizure, patient may have an episode of apnea, sudden cessation of the breathing
08:50or autonomic dysfunction due to brainstem involvement or cardiac arrhythmia.
08:55So because of all of these things, patient may go in sudden cardiac arrest.
08:59Now, we cannot make a diagnosis of SUDEP just like that.
09:03It has to be ruled.
09:05We have to rule out some other conditions.
09:06It's more of less like a diagnosis of exclusion.
09:09So if we see that the patient is a case of epilepsy, patient has been having uncontrolled seizures
09:15or not taking medications timely.
09:18We have ruled out other causes of cardiac arrest, be it heart attack or even status epilepticus.
09:25Patients who have seizures may also go in status epilepticus where they have
09:28continuous flurry of so many seizures.
09:31And if not treated timely, they may also die.
09:35But that is a different entity.
09:37Right.
09:37I also want to ask you, Dr. Balbir Singh, you know, since this conversation around younger
09:41people succumbing to heart attacks of this nature, the very fact that why are younger
09:47people, you know, dropping dead?
09:49What is going on?
09:50And I know and in the past as well, a lot has been said about the fact that the link
09:53to COVID vaccines, though it has been ruled out, the ICMR in detail reports has spoken
09:58about the fact that it's not connected to the vaccine.
10:01You know, what do you look, how do you look at it and how do you connect the dots here in
10:06its link to COVID, essentially to COVID, the infection per se and heart ailments now?
10:12Right.
10:12So we have seen the cardiac ailments and heart attacks go up in youngsters.
10:18Women, we thought, were protected by heart disease at young age is no more a fact.
10:24We know that young women are coming to us with heart attacks.
10:27So this is no more a reality.
10:30We see these young people getting heart attack and dying suddenly, very clear.
10:34So now to link it to COVID or COVID vaccine is going to be a big chapter.
10:40Nobody can get a correct answer to that.
10:42Now it's COVID is now five years down the line.
10:44We're still seeing a lot of heart attacks happen.
10:47So it's impossible for us to say the COVID has caused these things.
10:51It's very easy for public to say that COVID is the culprit or the vaccine is culprit.
10:56Now everybody...
10:57So you are saying that COVID too isn't the culprit here.
11:01The infection has got nothing to do with this.
11:03No, no, it's not.
11:04It's too late.
11:05Five years has gone past and it's too late for now.
11:08And certainly not the vaccine.
11:10Not the vaccine.
11:11You know, would you say that if there were to be these serious side effects of the vaccine,
11:17they would have been seen immediately after the dosage, say a year and a half or so after?
11:22So vaccine or COVID causing a heart attack is through thrombosis.
11:25So thrombosis happens early in the disease or early after vaccine.
11:29You don't see it after five years.
11:30You know, I also want to ask you, Dr. Balbir Singh, the very fact that, you know, we as a country are just getting unhealthier.
11:40You know, our diabetes risk has increased.
11:43Obesity levels have gone up in the last decade or so.
11:46So the very fact that we are leading sedentary lifestyles, you know, sitting really is the new smoking.
11:51How much each of these factors really play out when it comes to, you know, just so many younger people who are succumbing to heart disease, heart attacks and also cardiac arrest?
12:02So I would blame the many risk factors here, particularly in youngsters, the smoking, binge drinking and eating too much in fast joints, eating junky food, which is very unhealthy and lack of physical exercise.
12:18So if you put all this together, it contributes to majority of young heart attacks that we see.
12:23So when a young heart attack comes, the first question we ask is smoking and nine out of ten will say yes.
12:29And then they will come out with late night dinners and extra eating.
12:32All that is adding on.
12:33So with the westernization of the society is leading to these problems.
12:37Our economic growth is part burden of all this.
12:41And the stress levels have gone tremendously high.
12:43You know, if you just do a headcount in a room full of people, Dr. Rahul, you know, on how many people are now actually going in for preventive checkups, my guess is that number would be very low.
12:55How important is preventive health checkups?
12:59And from which age group should people start?
13:02Like above the age of 30 or would you say above the age of 25?
13:05What would your advice be, Dr. Rahul Chana?
13:07First of all, post-COVID, we have seen an uprise in the number of people who are coming to us now for preventive health care.
13:15Okay.
13:16Now, even that routine blood test panels, which have so many amounts, so many blood tests, which people usually get lipid profile, thyroid profile.
13:24They are doing that.
13:24People are doing ECG and echo.
13:26People are now more aware about the conditions.
13:29They are checking their blood pressure and sugar more often nowadays.
13:32So, that has been an uprise, but still the percentage of those people who are approaching us timely is still very low.
13:42The other thing that you talked about is that what do we do to make sure that we do not have such kind of heart attacks or cardiac attacks, whatever we are discussing about.
13:52First of all, whatever risk factors which are known, they have to be avoided.
13:59Alcohol, smoking, drugs, anabolic steroids, sedentary lifestyle, any co-existing morbidity, be it diabetes, sugar, obesity, that has to be controlled and treated.
14:15By doing so, automatically we are going to reduce our chances of having any such event in your future.
14:21Yes.
14:22The other thing is having timely check-up.
14:25So, I think anyone who is in 25 to 30 years of age group or beyond 30-35 should at least get their blood pressure and sugar monitored at least yearly.
14:35Because, you know, right now we are all living sedentary lifestyle, the kind of corporate culture we have, 9 to 5 job, desk job.
14:43We are using cars, automobiles.
14:45We are not walking enough.
14:47We are not doing enough physical activities.
14:49So, we have to make sure that whatever our parameters are, they are at least monitored.
14:54So, one should not get a sudden shock at 45-50 years of age that, okay, we are diabetic and we already have, the diabetes has already affected our kidneys.
15:03That should not happen.
15:05So, start your screening from 30 years of age.
15:08Gift yourself a blood pressure and sugar and routine blood investigation check-up on your birthday, the moment you turn 30.
15:17You know, Dr. Balbir Singh also talked to us about the fact that we as Indians and particularly, you know, South Asians, I would say, are predisposed to, you know, heart problems.
15:28What is going on here and what makes us particularly vulnerable?
15:32So, the reason is not clear, but there is a theory which is called the genetic module.
15:44So, there was a famine and a lack of, there was starvation during the British times when the Indian famines happened.
15:51And so, the body tried to converge energy for the muscles, for living.
15:59And suddenly, we have a real good class, good class, malls, good class eating, this five stars, the lot of fast food joints.
16:13So, the sudden change is probably affected our pancreas and that is why the diabetes has gone up tremendously.
16:20So, this sudden change in the lifestyle is what is probably responsible for going up diabetes, hypertension and the cholesterol.
16:29All three are the harbingers of heart disease.
16:33They provide the fuel with the bad genes.
16:35All right, the bad genes and then we have a poor lifestyle and that really is a deadly cocktail is what it appears that is leading to many younger Indians are coming to heart disease.
16:47Of course, we'd like to reiterate in the case of Shefali, this is a case which we need more details on.
16:54The post-mortem report is awaited.
16:56The autopsy report is there, but the doctors have reserved their opinion on that because she was taking medications.
17:02The family members have indicated that she had consulted a doctor a year ago, but did not after that and continue to take those medications.
17:10Did that have a link?
17:11Did that led to a drop in the blood pressure levels because she was fasting as well and eventually led to the cardiac arrest?
17:18These are details that emerge, will rather emerge over a period of time rather.
17:24I'm going to thank Dr. Chawla and Dr. Singh for joining in with your views on that big story that we are tracking.
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