Reflection on the 720 Eggs Experiment, and What's Next...

This blew up quickly... Now, I will reflect...

Well, this was uneggspected.

In the past 3 days, what was intended as a humble metabolic demonstration – in fact, somewhat of a throw away compared to others I’ve done – has exploded in the media.

My name and eggs — “Nick Norwitz Eggs” — now consumes 4 Google pages, dozens of news outlets including NYPost, DailyMail, Fox, and many more. Tweets are hitting 6 - 10M views, and…

And it appears I’m single handedly driving the term “Harvard Medical Student” in Google Trends.

Here, I’m going to reflect on (i) Why I did 720 eggs (ii) What the feedback has been (iii) And what I plant to do next.

Why I did 720 Eggs

Honestly, this wasn’t my best n = 1 experiment. The weak association between dietary cholesterol and circulating cholesterol is rather well known.

One reason I made the video was to simply to follow-up on new data in Cell on the mechanism behind why eggs won’t increase cholesterol meaningfully in most people (more on “most” below).

I saw an opportunity to demonstrate a principle, with flare, to amplify a message about mechanism.

At least, that was Part 1 of the purpose for the video.

Part 2 of the purpose of the video was a social experiment.

As I explain in the video itself (starting around 5:20):

What you’ll find – no surprise – is that more extreme messages carry further. They become memes that can self-propagate to spread a message.

Sadly, the message is often shallow or hollow. But – in their best forms – I think intellectual provocation can bring people together, provided those people are willing to listen to the words being said and the arguments being made when you go a level deeper, beyond the packaging, beyond the carton, beyond the shell.

I’ve found utility in this “legit-bait” approach…

Take the previous the Oreo versus Statin experiment, where I demonstrated I could drop my LDL cholesterol with Oreo cookies and that, in MY metabolic context, Oreo cookies outperformed statins for LDL lowering. Of course, this was engineered to grab eyeballs. And it too worked. But to what end?

The behind-the-scenes effect of that stunt – albeit a legitimate stunt, it was a stunt – was more partnerships, deeper discussions, more attention paid to our broader works (see references at the end), and the acquisition of more resources to get s**t done... Excuse me.

But, seriously, you’d be surprised who is willing to put resources on the table to propel forward the metabolic health studies that NEED to get done if you can provide a proof of principle, once you get the research done, you can make some noise about it.

I won’t provide specifics, for the sake of confidentialities. But I will say this: some individuals have expressed concern that my antics – or as one self-described “academic” put it, “parlor tricks” – would present an obstacle to our work being taken seriously by academia.

To that I say, “I promise, you have nothing to worry about.” In fact, we might just have some very big projects in the works with highly regarded institutions.

Candidly, having Harvard and Oxford affiliations, with friends at every quote “top” university I the world has its perks. It’s a shameless brag, but pertinent fact that I thought I’d share to settle the minds of my most concerned trolls who have trouble seeing the depth and larger strategy behind these “parlor tricks.”

Thankfully, their knee-jerk emotional reactions only propel what we are trying to do.

As I like to say now, “Data don’t care about your emotions. But the algorithm loves them.”

What the feedback has been

On that note, the feedback has been overall positive. I’ll let the comments stand for themselves.

I especially appreciate those people who took the time to truly listen to what I saying and hear out the not-so-hidden purpose of the video.

That said, of course there has been and will be push-back, and it’s interesting to observe the flavor of the critiques.

One that I find especially ironic is the caveat that this wouldn’t work if one were operating from a very low dietary cholesterol, as a vegan. To this I say, “true, but…”

• Most people aren’t vegan or near vegan, and for your average person eggs will not have a meaningful impact on cholesterol. It’s akin to criticizing someone for saying “shrimp is a great source of protein,” and getting attacked for not caveating, “unless a person has a shellfish allergy.” In biology, there are rarely absolutes.

• Even so, the video caveated “I hypothesize that in me” and “all things being equal,” etc., all in a lead up to discuss newly mechanisms (re Cholesin) on cholesterol homeostasis.

• Even were a vegan persuaded by my video to start eating eggs (and I honestly find this far-fetched), I don’t personally think this would be a negative health intervention overall. In fact, they may even benefit from the protein and multitude of nutrients in an egg.

I know this won’t quell a sect of angry plant-based enthusiasts that seem out for my head, but I respond here and elsewhere nonetheless. I guess I just enjoy controversy too much?

Also, can someone please explain what the heck is up with the low-vitamin A diet crowd? This one is new to me, but man are they… well “enthusiastic” may be a nice way to put it.

What I plant to do next

Well, of course, I plan to finish medical school, continue conducting our clinical trials, and in my spare time continue to enjoy breaking down Cell, Nature and Science etc. papers as the bread-and-butter hub content of my YouTube channel and social media.

Some recent content…

That said, I consider this Eggs-periment a success insofar as it did draw further attention and resources towards our cause.

The more I investigate the public psyche around metabolic health, the more I realize the utility in using stories, theses “stunts,” these n = 1’s to stimulate emotions in a manner that we can use for a greater purpose.

I used to think emotions and sensationalism were antagonistic to “proper science,” but I’m now realizing they can be strategic fertilizer.

All that is to say… I have much more to come. Actually, we have much more to come…