This 7-Year Experiment Should Have Killed Me
In a Nutshell
Dr. Nick Norwitz lived with severe inflammatory bowel disease until a ketogenic diet put it into full remission, but it raised his LDL cholesterol to nearly 600 mg/dL for seven years. An advanced heart scan showed zero plaque despite these extreme levels, supporting the lipid energy model that links fat metabolism on low-carb diets to high cholesterol without increased cardiovascular risk. He argues medicine overemphasizes LDL in isolation and that context, metabolic health, and individual factors matter more than population averages or standard guidelines.
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Dr. Nick Norwitz is an MD PhD and metabolic health scientist who has been running a personal experiment for the last 7 years that should be killing him. He had a full ride to Oxford for his PhD with a position at Harvard Medical School set afterwards. Behind the scenes, he developed severe inflammatory bowel disease that caused malnutrition, weight dropping below 100 lb, and multiple hospitalizations. He experienced chronic fear, social isolation, and could not date due to unpredictable episodes of violent, painful, bloody diarrhea.
The condition worsened to the point where he wanted to die and was in and out of intensive care while starting his PhD alone in another country. At his lowest point, he tried an extreme low-carb ketogenic diet. His inflammatory bowel disease went fully into remission, confirmed not just by symptoms but by biomarkers and colonoscopy with biopsy showing no disease activity.
The ketogenic diet caused his cholesterol to rise dramatically. LDL cholesterol increased from around 90 to nearly 600, with total cholesterol topping 700. He has lived with these levels for 7 years despite medical school textbooks indicating his heart should be clogged with plaque and he should be dying. He accepted these risks because the same factor saving his life from inflammatory bowel disease is what elevates his cholesterol.
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