Cracking the Cholesterol Code: Medical Student’s Shocking Egg Experiment Yields Surprising Results
- A common myth is that egg yolks are high in cholesterol, leading to cardiovascular problems with long-term consumption.
- Nick Norwitz, a PhD in human brain metabolism at the University of Oxford and a medical student at Harvard University, hypothesized that eating 60 dozen eggs would not...
- LDL is considered "bad cholesterol" because it can build up as plaque in your arteries, increasing the risk of heart disease and stroke.
Medical Student Eats 720 Eggs in a Month, Cholesterol Levels Decrease
A common myth is that egg yolks are high in cholesterol, leading to cardiovascular problems with long-term consumption. To debunk this, a Harvard University medical student ate 720 eggs for a month, resulting in an 18% drop in “bad cholesterol” levels.
Before the experiment, Dr. Nick Norwitz, a PhD in human brain metabolism at the University of Oxford and a medical student at Harvard University, hypothesized that eating 60 dozen eggs would not raise levels of LDL (low-density lipoprotein), or bad cholesterol.
LDL is considered “bad cholesterol” because it can build up as plaque in your arteries, increasing the risk of heart disease and stroke.
During the experiment, Nick’s normal LDL level was about 90 milligrams per deciliter. However, after eating eggs, his LDL levels dropped 2% in the first week and 18% in the last two weeks.
Nick explained in a video: “I think I’ll eat 720 eggs a month. That’s 133,200 milligrams of cholesterol. It’s not going to raise my cholesterol levels that much. It’s not going to raise my LDL cholesterol.”
Nick added, “And that certainly wasn’t the case. Not even a little bit. Even though the amount of cholesterol in my diet was more than 5 times higher, the bad cholesterol, LDL, actually decreased in lean, insulin-sensitive people on low-carb diets. Specifically, on the ketogenic diet, LDL levels tend to increase as part of the fat triad.”
Two weeks into the experiment, Nick began consuming 60 grams of carbohydrates a day, eating bananas, blueberries, cherries, and other fruits.
Nick explained that people who follow a low-carb diet are more likely to have increased bad cholesterol because the body starts burning fat for energy instead of carbohydrates.
Studies have shown that people with health problems, including diabetes, who eat 6-12 eggs a week do not have a negative effect on total blood cholesterol levels or heart disease risk factors. Instead, it causes an increase in high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol levels, or “good” cholesterol.