Harvard student eats 720 eggs in a month: The experiment’s surprising result

Eggs are commonly consumed by millions of people around the world, appreciated for their flavor and high nutritional value. Americans, for one, love them, with demand for the popular breakfast product growing in the U.S. over the last few years.

According to Statista, the average consumption in 2023 was 281.3 eggs per person, with the number projected to rise to 284.4 in 2024.

The question of how many eggs a person can eat a day without increasing cholesterol levels and the risk of heart disease has long been contentious.

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There is a wide range of recommended daily servings, although the common statement among health institutions is that a healthy person can generally eat up to seven eggs a week without such risks.

Does eating eggs really have a significant impact on our health? This is the question that Nick Norwitz, a young Harvard student and doctor of physiology from Oxford University, decided to tackle by conducting a study on himself.

Over the course of a month, Norwitz underwent a radical experiment to test his hypothesis: that eating 720 eggs in 30 days would not increase his levels of LDL cholesterol, also known as “bad” cholesterol.

An unprecedented challenge

In his viral video, Norwitz explained in detail how his experiment was carried out. “I ate one egg per hour, every hour, for an entire month.”

This comes out to a daily consumption of 24 eggs, totaling 720 in 30 days. The idea was simple: to see if this massive intake of cholesterol would affect his blood cholesterol levels.

At the end of the month, and contrary to popular belief, his tests showed that his LDL cholesterol not only didn’t rise, it actually went down.

“My LDL cholesterol dropped 2% during the first two weeks, and then dropped another 18% over the next two weeks,” Norwitz said. He says this result contradicts common notions about the impact of dietary cholesterol.

What is the reason for this phenomenon? Norwitz explains that the relationship between diet and cholesterol levels in the body is more complex than it seems.

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The researcher points out that when we consume cholesterol, it binds to receptors in intestinal cells, which in turn triggers the release of a hormone called cohesin. This hormone travels to the liver, where it binds to a specific receptor and “tells” the organ not to produce more cholesterol, which establishes a balance in the body.

However, Norwitz also disclosed an additional factor that may have played a role in lowering his LDL cholesterol.

Over the course of his experiment, he added 60 grams of net carbs per day from fruits like bananas, blueberries, and strawberries.

This small tweak to his diet seemed to have a big effect. According to the student, carbs can lower LDL cholesterol levels, especially in individuals with what he calls a “lean mass hyper-responder phenotype,” which is common on low-carb diets.

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Debunking food myths

Through this extreme experiment, Norwitz has been able to challenge some popular beliefs about diet and cholesterol. The key, he says, lies in the balance between different macronutrients, such as fats and carbohydrates, which together regulate cholesterol levels in a much more complex way than previously thought.

This experiment has shown that despite traditional recommendations leaning toward moderate egg consumption, there are more factors at play than just the cholesterol they contain.

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