Originally published at: Harvard med student eats 720 eggs in 30 days, cholesterol drops - Boing Boing
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This is my kind of experiment. I could eat eggs all day.
Well, maybe not all day, but several times a day. Yeah. Eggcelent.
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Who let Gaston into harvard?
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my cholesterol dropped on keto, which involved an ordinately large number of eggs
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Serum cholesterol is not really responsive to dietary manipulation. Serum triglycerides? Absolutely. But cholesterol is made by the body, and it will maintain what it thinks is its “normal” level regardless of intake. That is determined by genetics, mostly. It can be affected by medication very effectively, and exercise a bit. Eggs? Not at all.
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What else did he eat? The eggs are only 1872 calories a day. If that’s all he ate, he probably lost weight, so I’m not surprised his cholesterol would drop. Also, that’s just really bad science. He used a sample size of one: himself. And he did the study for only 1 month. Sometimes the body can compensate for an imbalanced diet over a short period of time, but over a long period of time, it can’t. He didn’t prove his hypothesis. He didn’t prove shit, except that doing weird shit on social media generates engagement.
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This reminds me of America’s decades-long and disastrous obsession with low-fat foods, based on the incorrect assumption that a diet that is high in carbs is inherently healthier than a diet that’s high in fats.
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That wasn’t an assumption. That was propaganda pushed by the sugar producing industry.
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An assumption deliberately pushed by sugar and corn industries, IIRC.
Anyway - I like eggs, but two dozen eggs a day for a month is just too many.
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Absolutely, but the lobbyists also got official government health guidelines to push for a high-carb diet starting in the 1970s or so.
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I was taking a biochem class back in the mid '70s when the whole cholesterol thing was really cranking up. My prof was of a mind that cholesterol intake didn’t change serum cholesterol levels because food cholesterol isn’t absorbed directly, rather it’s broken down into components, then reassembled into other required chemicals. Looks like he was probably right.
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Obligatory. Came here for this 
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The history of which can be found here:
This book changed my outlook on dietary advice for parents.
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Reminds me of the guy who wanted to prove that repeated stress causes tendinitis. Did thousands of pen clicks with his right thumb every day, while keeping his left as a control. Result? Horrible tendinitis and a heavily cited publication.
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Per the Scientific Report of the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee:
available evidence shows no appreciable relationship between consumption of dietary cholesterol and serum (blood) cholesterol, consistent with the AHA/ACC (American Heart Association / American College of Cardiology) report. Cholesterol is not a nutrient of concern for overconsumption.
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Reminds me of this PR campaign from the 90s that tried to convince people it was safe to eat one more egg per week. Even an egg industry group was afraid to recommend eating eggs every day.
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It’'s depressing how many people still think the “like for like” magical thinking school of dietary advice is valid.
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