Reply #35: Yeah, that was the official cause of death. [View All]

[greyl]

The movie doesn't really make that crystal clear.

His body was found in his sleeping bag inside the bus, weighing an estimated 67 pounds. He had been dead for more than two weeks. His official cause of death was starvation.

Biographer Jon Krakauer has suggested two factors which may have contributed to McCandless's death in August, 1992. First, he was running the risk of starvation due to his increased activity, compared with the leanness of the game he was hunting. <4> However, Krakauer insists that starvation was not, as McCandless' death certificate states, the primary cause of death. Initially, Krakauer claimed that McCandless might have ingested toxic seeds (Hedysarum alpinum). However, extensive laboratory testing proved conclusively that there was no alkaloid toxin present in McCandless' food supplies. In later editions of the book, therefore, Krakauer has speculated that a fungus Rhizoctonia leguminicola could have grown on the seeds McCandless ate. However, there remains no evidence to support Krakauer's theory, and all available forensic data suggests that McCandless simply starved to death.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_McCandless