I’m an Oxford University expert who ate 720 eggs in a month. What it did to my health went against everything we’ve been told… and might make you rethink YOUR diet

Dr. Nick Norwitz is a man who knows his eggs. Fried, baked, puffed or scrambled, the former Oxford academic and now Harvard medical student has been enjoying them in all kinds of ways lately. If you set a goal of eating 720 eggs per month – the equivalent of one egg per hour for 28 days – it’s important to find ways to achieve variety.

But even more surprising than him putting himself on this egg diet in the first place is the impact it has on the 28-year-old’s health. After the month-long experiment, Norwitz’s levels of “bad” LDL (low-density lipoprotein) cholesterol actually dropped by 20 percent, undermining the popular belief that too many eggs causes cholesterol to rise.

Speaking exclusively to the Mail this week after completing the experiment – ​​or should that be egg-periment – ​​Dr. Norwitz, who has a PhD in human brain metabolism from the University of Oxford and is now training to become a physician at Harvard University, explains that he wanted to promote discussion and curiosity.

He focused on eggs because of their association with cholesterol (“and I love eggs”).

‘The logic is that if you have too much cholesterol in your blood, it is because of the food you eat. And eggs contain a lot of cholesterol. What I wanted to do was reinforce what is becoming increasingly common knowledge: that dietary cholesterol in the form of foods like eggs does not increase your blood cholesterol levels.”

The experiment was self-funded – as he notes, “I can basically afford to buy eggs.”

(U.S. egg company Vital Farms has since offered him free eggs for a year, and he says, “I’ll gladly accept that. Medical school is expensive.”)

Ask most people and they’ll probably say, “Eggs are bad for cholesterol.” But in recent years there has been a sea change in this piece of advice, even if the message has yet to trickle down. In fact, it is now known that almost 80 percent of the cholesterol in our bodies is made in the liver and recent studies suggest that eating eggs if you are otherwise healthy will not increase your cholesterol nor your risk of cardiovascular disease enlarge.

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 fewer than two eggs.

Cholesterol is a naturally fatty substance produced by the liver and we need some of it to build cells. LDL is considered “bad” because it can build up as plaque in the arteries, increasing the risk of heart disease and stroke.

Although our main source is the liver, cholesterol is also found in foods: one large egg contains approximately 186 mg, all from the yolk. So why doesn’t the cholesterol in eggs cause any 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, signaling it to produce cholesterol. fewer LDL.

(This is different from foods high in saturated fat, which stop the work of receptors that move cholesterol from the blood to 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 things you eat, and because eggs have high cholesterol, you should reduce your egg intake. But the body is actually very good at regulating cholesterol from food, for example.’

Before his experiment earlier this year, Norwitz — whose cholesterol levels were normal — hypothesized that consuming the 60 dozen eggs would not raise levels of bad cholesterol by the time the month was over. He called the number informed of the cute social media hook (an egg every hour of the day and night!). Indeed, 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 approximately 4,750 mg daily.

During the experiment, he ate only two meals a day: between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m., and then around 6 p.m. Each meal consisted of 12 eggs (this left him with 40 empty egg cartons at the end: he simply put them in the recycling). His culinary ingenuity included cooking with all kinds of fats, such as macadamia nut butter, scrambled eggs with olive oil, capers and anchovies – without planning ahead, but with what was in the refrigerator. In addition to the eggs, he also ate proteins such as meat and fish, but kept his diet low in carbohydrates.

‘The only rule was that for the first two weeks I followed a low-carb diet of less than 20 grams per day – which amounts to no more than an apple. After two weeks I increased that to 60 grams per day – which amounts to two bananas.’

He explains that the theory behind this is that on a low-carb diet, LDL levels tend to rise because your system starts to burn fat for energy instead of carbohydrates. But if you add some carbohydrates, the LDL level will drop faster because you get more energy from carbohydrates. This explains, he says, why his cholesterol dropped by only 2 percent in the first two weeks, and then fell another 18 percent in the second week.

Amazingly, his routine and personal health seems to be undisturbed.

‘I was sleeping seven hours a night, eating 3,200 calories a day and not gaining or losing any weight. I exercised, as I always have, about an hour a day – mostly resistance training. I’m an energetic person, if you like, and am quite sporty. I am also 6 feet tall with a slim build and my BMI [body mass index] never cracked 22.’ (That’s within the ‘healthy’ range).

Are there side effects such as excessive flatulence or constipation?

“None,” 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 I would have been told of any stomach problems.’

But he is clear that he doesn’t try this at home. He admits that he has always been someone who pushes boundaries. After breaking his leg at age 17, he insisted on still participating in his hometown race, the Boston Marathon, albeit on crutches (“my mother wasn’t happy”).

And although he did the egg diet without any guidance, previous supervised experiments included eating 12 Oreos a day on a high-protein diet for 16 days to demonstrate its effect. [carbohydrates in] cookies could lower cholesterol better than statins. His LDL dropped 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 their impact.)

‘I also got a PhD in metabolism. I understand medicine and know what to look out for. “I’m not suggesting people do this or come between a patient and their doctor.”

As news of his egg study spread, experts have expressed concerns.

‘I think it’s madness to go on any of these crazy diets,’ says Dr Glyn Thomas, consultant cardiologist at the Bristol Heart Institute.

‘The advice we give patients is that there is no such thing as healthy food, only healthy food. Being aware of a healthy diet, exercising three times a week, quitting smoking and limiting alcohol consumption is more meaningful than the advice from ten years ago about avoiding eggs, dairy, cheese – animal fat traditionally seen as raising cholesterol .’

And while Professor Sanjay Prasad, a 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 sensible amount for a healthy person and four to five eggs a week . for someone with risk factors such as diabetes and heart disease’.

He adds: ‘If you eat foods containing cholesterol, that cholesterol can be deposited in the arteries, of which high cholesterol can lead to heart disease. The other is that chemicals in egg yolk can be metabolized into a substance called Trimethylamine N-Oxide, which 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 idea was to show people that they didn’t have to shy away from eggs: “I wanted people to discuss the levers that can influence cholesterol levels in different individuals and promote curiosity.”

His egg feast hasn’t stopped him from eating eggs and he still has about six a day.

‘For me, choosing an egg-based breakfast meal, which is packed with nutrients, is a better option than many standard high-carb foods that increase insulin and promote fat growth.

‘I think eggs are good and if you want to use them as the main source of protein in a meal, four eggs in a meal, such as breakfast, is not a problem.’

And he says he’s still hungry for more experiments like this – literally.