Aaron Carter in December 2004 during a concert.

DLNews Entertainment:

On Saturday, ex-child star Aaron Carter died at the age of 34. In the morning, his housekeeper found him dead in his bathtub in his Lancaster (California) home.

Most recently, the singer had made headlines almost exclusively with scandals and drug excesses. And new details made fear that he was not yet out of the drug swamp. According to celebrity magazine TMZ, police investigators found several cans of compressed air and prescription pills in Carter's bathroom and bedroom. It was unclear if that was the cause of death, but it could be an essential clue as to what may have happened.

In 2017, the singer was already clearly marked by drugs. Here on a police photo.

In the past, Carter had repeatedly struggled with drug and alcohol problems. And he was also open about his addiction to compressed air spray. As recently as September, he said in an interview with The Sun that he had "wrecked" his brain by "inhaling compressed air spray from cans and suffering over 100 seizures." He said he absolutely did not want to go back there.

Canned air contains compressed gas in an aerosol-shaped can spray on keyboards and inside electronic devices to remove dirt and dust. The main ingredient is difluoroethane, a chemical compound in the fluorocarbon group.

Inhalation of canned air can cause an immediate high and hallucinations and delusions. This may be immediately followed by a clouding of consciousness or hallucinations. The toxic substances can also trigger a failure of the respiratory center in the brain.

Although the effects of such substances usually pass quickly, it is possible to overdose. If one inhales too much, one suffocates from a lack of oxygen. In addition, sniffing these products can cause cardiac arrest within minutes, according to the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).

The NIDA warns that between 100 and 200 people die each year from a cause related to the abuse of such inhalants.

Whether that's what caused Aaron Carter's death now needs to be determined by an autopsy and a toxicology study. And that could take months, according to investigators.