British brides hell bent on looking svelte for their big day are adopting a 500-calorie diet — and paying the price. Sadly, the diet has claimed its 17th a victim, forcing the company to pursue an indifferent defense.

The most recent victim was one Samantha Clowe, whose mother says the bride-to-be "didn't want to be a fat bride," so she took up the LighterLife diet. And now she's dead. The coroner chalked the death up to cardiac arrest, a not uncommon ailment for those who lose rapid amounts of weight. It also provides LighterLife a convenient excuse. Their liability-minded distancing practically drips with apathy, except when it comes to addressing Clowe's short-lived results:

The coroner said she was clinically obese which increased the risk of cardiac death. It had been suggested there was a possible link to the diet, but the coroner said it was very difficult to make such a connection.
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Samantha came to us weighing more than 17 stone. Although she lost three stone, her health may have already been compromised.

See? She was already overweight, so it's her own damn fault, not the company's, that she died after trying to achieve impossibly unhealthy goals. And that, friends, is how you distance yourself from a death that's uncomfortably close to your company's life blood.

Image via Alicake*'s flickr.