Mental Sorbet, 3

No politics, just stuff. Like mental sherbet, but with special consideration for the lactose intolerant.

Well, it’s new to me.

Was Elvis Presley’s death really caused by an autoimmune disorder triggered by a 1967 brain injury?

While an autopsy was performed within a day of Elvis' body being discovered, the results were sealed for decades, fueling speculation on his true cause of death.

Dan Warlick, chief investigator for the Tennessee Office of the State Chief Medical Examiner, attended his autopsy. His statements on Elvis' death largely contributed to theories he died while trying to have a bowel movement.

He said: "Presley's chronic constipation – the result of years of prescription drug abuse and high-fat, high-cholesterol gorging – brought on what's known as Valsalva's maneuver. Put simply, the strain of attempting to defecate compressed the singer's abdominal aorta, shutting down his heart."

Despite Warlick's claims, others believed Elvis suffered a drug overdose; however, one prominent California physician disagreed with both theories altogether.

Dr. Forest Tennant reviewed the sealed file while defending Elvis' doctor George Nichopoulos, who was later acquitted of over-prescribing drugs to the singer.

He claimed the severe deterioration of Elvis' body pointed to decades of trauma, well before his drug abuse issues.

Tennant believed the singer's organ damage – as well as issues such as vertigo, insomnia, back pain, eye infections and headaches – stemmed from a serious head injury Elvis sustained in 1967.

He believed the head trauma triggered an autoimmune inflammatory disorder and detailed his theory in a 2013 medical paper.

The physician noted Elvis tripped over a television cord and knocked himself out on the bathtub, an injury he alleged was so severe it caused brain tissue to dislodge and enter his blood circulation.

As the tissue entered his bloodstream, Tennant believed the singer's body identified it as a foreign substance and produced antibodies to fight it.

Due to a lack of understanding of autoimmune diseases at the time, Elvis' symptoms most likely would have been misdiagnosed.

Presley was found with four-month-old compacted stool in his colon, and his heart was twice its normal size at the time of his death. He also suffered from emphysema, despite having never been a smoker.