A hugely overweight Mexican man weighing nearly half a tonne dies on his
way to hospital after requesting help to lose weight.


JUAREZ, NUEVO LEON, MEXICO (OCTOBER 07, 2008) TELEVISA -
A hugely overweight Mexican man weighing nearly half a tonne died of
a heart attack on his way to hospital on Tuesday (October 07) after requesting
help to lose weight.
Rescue workers had to demolish 47 year-old Jose Luis Garza's bedroom
wall. The 992 pounds (450kg) man was then hauled on to a tow truck.
He had been bedridden for months and was struggling to breathe and
eat.
Garza had followed in the footsteps of Manuel Uribe, once the world's
most obese man, who went on television pleading for help to reduce his weight.

Uribe, who weighed as much as a small truck at more than half a tonne,
is dieting and has lost 518 pounds since March 2006 on a diet of grapefruit,
egg-white only omelets, fish, chicken, vegetables and peanuts. He now weighs
some 717 pounds -- the size of three hefty men.
Garza started eating uncontrollably after both his parents died within
two weeks of each other at the start of the year.
His relatives blamed hospital workers for not helping Garza sooner.
Uribe, who announced this week he would marry his long-term girlfriend
Claudia Solis in a civil ceremony this month, had sent Garza fruits and
protein supplements in an attempt to help him.
Uribe spent the 1990s eating pizzas and burgers in the United States
where he worked as a computer repairman. Addicted to junk food, he eventually
tipped the scales at 1,235 pounds back in Mexico, bingeing on greasy
tacos.
His bulk made him the world's heaviest man and won him a place in the
2008 edition of the Guinness World Records. He is now vying for a different
record: the human who has lost the most weight.
In Mexico, Uribe underwent a tummy tuck operation but it caused
massive, permanent swelling, and did not reduce his weight.
Abandoned by his wife, his health failing and with no income, Uribe
pleaded for help on Mexican television, stirring up intense international
interest.
Uribe, cared for by his mother Otilia, turned down offers of gastric
bypass surgery in Italy. Instead he took free medical help from U.S. doctor
Barry Sears. He lost weight following the Zone Diet, which is high in protein
and low in carbohydrates.