Finally! Someone Gets It! Eggs, Oreos, and N = 1

Finally, someone gets it! Over the past month or so, I've been inundated with news articles and reaction videos and threads talking about my 720 egg-speriment, where I lowered my cholesterol while eating 720 eggs over 1 month, as well as my other relatively viral n=1 metabolic demonstrations, such as the peer-reviewed and published 5-month Oreo versus statin study, and the recent 600 strips of bacon video. And the fact of the matter is, I will be scaling up and entering into collaborations with some very high-profile individuals, including athletes and scientists, starting in the first quarter of 2025. But the big question is, why? I thought this article by journalist and registered nurse Sharami Sy hit the nail on the head from a third-party perspective as to why I'm doing what I'm doing and why I'm planning on making n=1 Science bigger and better in the coming months to years. So now I want to read some excerpts from this news article and react, and then I'm going to give you a teaser of what's to come. Alright, reading from the article: Harvard medical student Nick Norwitz, who holds a doctorate in physiology from Oxford, recently embarked on a personal health experiment that captured public attention. In just one month, he ate 720 eggs, an average of 24 per day, and observed an 18% drop in his LDL cholesterol, commonly called "bad cholesterol." But the full takeaway significance of the experiment went beyond diet. Norwitz's experiment highlights a growing trend in the scientific community where individuals and researchers alike are turning to personalized, real-world experiments, often called n=1 studies, to answer pressing health questions. This approach represents a notable shift from conventional research and offers a new way for medical science to to engage the public and empower people to take charge of their health. I really love this. And Sherami is absolutely right. I could care less if any individual eats any particular food. This isn't about eating eggs or bacon or Oreos, not really. I have two parallel objectives. The first, and perhaps lesser of the two, is to draw attention to our larger body of work, exploring the intricacies of a metabolic outlier population, our lean mass hyperresponders, because I truly believe they have a tremendous amount to teach the biomedical community about basic human physiology. Drumming up enthusiasm and attention can, for me and my teams, directly translate into functional partnerships and resource acquisition to get more and more rigorous research studies in the books. But the greater purpose and direct relevance to you, even if you're not a lean mass hyper-responder or on a ketogenic diet, comes down to the immense power of the n=1 approach. Again, quoting from the article: This video isn't really about eggs. It's actually a social experiment and reflection exercise for both me and you. That's precisely the point. It's about finding what works specifically for you. And then the article then goes on to discuss the very real limitations about how we conduct research today, exploring the caveats of large-scale human randomized control trials, which are often seen as the gold standard in medical research, but which sacrifice specificity and individuality, and drawing quotes from esteemed Stanford professor Michael Snyder. Quoting now from the article: Instead of drawing conclusions from large groups, n=1 studies focus on the individual, allowing people to directly test how specific interventions affect their unique health profiles. "N=1 is the future." Michael Snyder, a leading genetics professor at Stanford Medicine, told the Epoch Times in an email. "We are all different, and now we can collect a lot of data on a single person to make very specific, personalized recommendations," Snyder added. N=1 science empowers people to become citizen scientists, experimenting and refining their health choices to find what works best on their own individual bodies. Now, the rise of n=1 science isn't just for researchers or healthcare professionals. It's an approach that anyone can adopt. And by paying close attention to how your body responds to changes in diet, exercise, or even medication, you can become the scientist of your own health journey. Continuing, the article, now quoting from me, reads, "Science isn't just afforded to those who have formal training, Norwitz said. Science is a process that every single human being can engage in, he added. I, Dr. Norwitz, truly believe this, and I believe every single person can achieve metabolic health. Not through eggs or bacon per se, or goodness forbid Oreos, definitely not Oreos, but through applying the scientific method to themselves, myself, yourself, By defining your goal, hypothesizing what intervention will help you achieve that goal, and then executing on that intervention and assessing your hypothesis. Did it work? And then iterating, going at it again and again so that your progress on your metabolic health journey is ever forward. You're constantly iterating and evolving on your personal metabolic health journey. And the article closes with ongoing advancements in technology, and the rise of citizen science, the boundaries, distinctions between professional researchers and the public will continue to blur. Science is no longer confined to the lab. It's in the hands of anyone willing to observe, experiment, and take control of their health. In this context, Norwitz said, n=1 science could be the key to a more collaborative, individualized future of medicine. 'Your life is an n=1 experiment,' Norwitz noted. And I'm Nick Norwitz, and I endorse this statement. If you agree, I really encourage you to share this video and read the full article. Your engagement incentivizes more of this and propels forward n=1 science and citizen science and the democratization of science. Now, as for the teaser of what's to come, My next personal experiment will be a bold demonstration where I aim to increase, increase my cholesterol and LDL cholesterol on a vegan diet. Specifically, I will increase my fiber, increase my polyunsaturated fat intake while cutting my saturated fat intake massively and dropping my cholesterol intake to zero. But using the power of new metabolic models, I still think I can overpower these factors and actually increase my cholesterol on the vegan diet. My friend and colleague Dave Feldman is doing something similar, his own experiment where he goes from a standard American diet to a vegan keto diet and tracks his cholesterol changes. Now, this is a completely independent and currently in-process research project, so I don't know the results, but we will be reporting on them. And since the egg video, I've been approached by some big names who are interested in replicating my results in a systematic way. In one case over a 12-week intense trial. But you're gonna have to wait to see who this is and what their results turn out to be. Anyway, all that's to say, watch this space, stay curious, and we're just getting warmed up.