Dr. Nick Norwitz is a man who knows his eggs. Baked, fried, stuffed or scrambled, the former Oxford academic and now Harvard medical student has enjoyed them in many ways recently. After all, when you set a goal of eating 720 eggs in a month (the equivalent of one egg per hour for 28 days), it’s important to find ways to achieve variety.
However, even more surprising than undergoing this egg-filled diet is the impact it has had on the 28-year-old’s health. After the month-long experiment, Norwitz’s “bad” low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol levels actually fell by 20 percent, overturning the popular view that too many eggs cause cholesterol to skyrocket.
Speaking exclusively to the Mail this week after completing the experiment (or should it be an egg experiment), Dr Norwitz, who has a PhD in human brain metabolism from the University of Oxford and is now at Harvard University preparing to be a doctor, he explained that he wanted to promote debate and curiosity.
Dr. Nick Norwitz, with egg boxes to keep him going during his month-long egg experiment
He focused on eggs because of their association with cholesterol (“and I like eggs”).
‘The logic is that if you have too much cholesterol in your blood, it will be due to the foods you eat. And eggs are high in cholesterol. What I intended to do was expand on what is increasingly known: that dietary cholesterol in the form of foods such as eggs does not increase blood cholesterol.’
The experiment was self-financed; as he points out, “I can actually afford to buy eggs.”
(Vital Farms, the American egg producer, has since offered him a year’s worth of free eggs, and he says, “I’m more than happy to accept. Medical school is expensive.”)
Ask most people and they’ll probably say, “Eggs are bad for your cholesterol.” But in recent years there has been a sea change in this small council, even if the message has not yet filtered through. In fact, it is now known that almost 80 percent of our body’s cholesterol is produced in the liver, and recent studies suggest that eating eggs, if you are otherwise healthy, will not raise your cholesterol or increase your risk of heart disease.
For example, earlier this year, researchers at the Duke Clinical Research Institute in Durham, North Carolina, found that people who ate 12 eggs a week had similar cholesterol levels after four months compared to those who ate less than two.
Cholesterol is a natural fatty substance produced by the liver and we need it to form cells. LDL is considered “bad” because it can build up as plaque in the arteries, increasing the risk of heart disease and stroke.
Norwitz says the goal of eating 720 eggs in a month was to “promote curiosity” about the topic.
While our main source is the liver, cholesterol is also found in foods: a large egg has about 186 mg, all coming from the yolk. So why doesn’t the cholesterol in eggs cause problems?
The theory is that eating foods containing cholesterol triggers the release of the hormone cholesin, which travels to the liver where it binds to a receptor, telling it to produce less LDL.
(This is different from foods high in saturated fats, which stop the work of receptors that take cholesterol out of the blood and into the liver, where it is broken down.)
“Eggs have had a bad reputation,” says Norwitz. ‘The logical fallacy is that if you have cholesterol in your blood, it must come from what you eat and, since eggs have high cholesterol, it is necessary to reduce their consumption. But the body is actually very good at regulating things like cholesterol from food.’
Before his experiment earlier this year, Norwitz, whose cholesterol levels were normal, hypothesized that consuming 60 dozen eggs would not increase bad cholesterol levels when the month was over. He found the number conscious of the cute hook of social networks (an egg every hour of the day and night!). In fact, there are no specific recommended limits for the amount of dietary cholesterol we consume. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence suggests that people at risk of developing coronary heart disease should limit their cholesterol to 300 mg per day. Dr. Norwitz consumed about 4,750 mg per day.
During the experiment he ate only two meals a day: between 10 and 11 a.m., and then around 6 p.m. Each meal consisted of 12 eggs (this left him with 40 empty egg cartons in the end: he simply put them in the recycling). His culinary inventiveness included cooking with all types of fats such as macadamia nut butter, scrambled eggs with olive oil, capers and anchovies, with no more planning than what was in the refrigerator. In addition to eggs, he also ate proteins like meat and fish, but kept his diet low in carbohydrates.
‘The only rule was that for the first two weeks I followed a very low carbohydrate diet of less than 20g a day, which is equivalent to no more than one apple. After two weeks, I increased it to 60g a day, which is equivalent to two bananas.’
He explains that the theory behind this is that with a low-carb diet, LDL levels tend to increase because the system begins to burn fat for energy instead of carbohydrates. But when you add some carbohydrates, LDL levels drop faster because you get more energy from carbohydrates. This, he says, explains why his cholesterol dropped only 2 percent in the first two weeks and then dropped another 18 percent in the second week.
Surprisingly, his routine and personal health appear to have been trouble-free.
‘I slept seven hours straight a night, ate 3,200 calories a day and neither gained nor lost any weight. I exercised, as always, about an hour a day, usually resistance training. I’m a high-energy person, so to speak, and I’m quite athletic. I’m also 5ft 8in, slim and my BMI (body mass index) has never been above 22.’ (That’s within the “healthy” range.)
Any side effects like excess wind or constipation?
“None at all,” he declares proudly. ‘It seems like my body has adapted to eating a lot of fat and protein. My girlfriend sleeps in the same bed as me and any gastric symptoms would have warned me.’
But he is clear that he should not try this at home; By his own admission, he has always been someone who pushes boundaries. After breaking his leg at age 17, he insisted on continuing to participate in his hometown race, the Boston Marathon, albeit on crutches (“my mother was not happy”).
And although he followed the egg diet without any guidance, previous experiments, which have been supervised, included eating 12 Oreo cookies a day on a high-protein diet for 16 days to show that the carbohydrates (in) the cookies could lower cholesterol better. than taking statins. His LDL plummeted by more than 70 percent. (He emphasizes that his role was not to encourage people to eat Oreos or stop taking statins, just to understand the impact.)
‘I also have a PhD in metabolism; I know medicine and I know what to control. I’m not suggesting that people do this or come between a patient and their doctor.’
In fact, as news of their egg study spread, experts expressed their concerns.
“I think it’s crazy to do any of these crazy diets,” says Dr Glyn Thomas, consultant cardiologist at Bristol Heart Institute.
‘The advice we give to patients is that there are no healthy foods, only a healthy diet. Being mindful of a healthy diet, exercising three times a week, quitting smoking and restricting alcohol is more significant than the advice given ten years ago about avoiding eggs, dairy and cheese: animal fats traditionally considered to increase fat. cholesterol.’
And although Professor Sanjay Prasad, a consultant cardiologist at the Royal Brompton Hospital in London, says there is no consensus on a daily egg limit, “in my opinion, seven eggs a week is a reasonable amount for a healthy person and four to five for someone with risk factors like diabetes and heart disease.”
And he adds: «When you eat foods with cholesterol, that cholesterol can be deposited in the blood vessels, high levels of which can cause heart disease. The other thing is that the chemicals in egg yolk can be metabolized to create a substance called trimethylamine N-oxide that can sometimes cause inflammation of the heart vessels. That’s why I don’t think more than seven a week makes sense.’
Norwitz says the goal was to show people that they didn’t have to shy away from eggs: “I wanted people to discuss the factors that can affect cholesterol in different individuals and encourage curiosity.”
His egg feast has not deterred him from eating eggs and he still eats about six a day.
‘For me, choosing a breakfast based on eggs, which are packed with nutrients, is a better option than many standard carbohydrate foods that will spike insulin and promote fat growth.
“In my opinion, eggs are good and if you are going to consume them as the main source of protein in a meal, four eggs in a meal like breakfast is not a problem.”
And he says he still wants to do more experiments of this type, literally.