Man eating 6-9 pounds of butter and cheese a day develops ‘cholesterol hands’ while on carnivore diet: JAMA
www.fox10phoenix.com
A man who told doctors he ate nothing, but 6–9 pounds of butter, cheese and hamburgers every day for eight months ended up at Tampa General Hospital with yellowish lumps of cholesterol developing on parts of his body.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/23613852

A man who told doctors he ate nothing, but 6–9 pounds of butter, cheese and hamburgers every day for eight months ended up at Tampa General Hospital with yellowish lumps of cholesterol developing on parts of his body.

The backstory: According to JAMA Cardiology, a man, who is only identified as being in his 40s, told doctors that he got diet advice from the internet and began following an extreme carnivore diet.

For eight months, he only ate 6–9 pounds of butter, cheese and hamburgers a day. He stopped eating all carbohydrates, such as bread and sugar.

At first, he said he felt great. He lost weight, became more energetic and had more mental clarity.

But after about eight months, he started developing yellow lesions on his eyelids. Over the next month, the yellow lesions appeared on the palms of his hands, the soles of his feet and his elbows.

Doctors diagnosed him with xanthelasma, a rare condition that impacts about 1% of patients with high cholesterol.

Dig deeper: Xanthelasma is yellow raised deposits of cholesterol that appear under the skin because the body cannot process it.

  • NateNate60@lemmy.world
    9·
    16 hours ago

    How has he not died of scurvy? None of this stuff contains any significant quantity of vitamin C?

    Edit: Upon some further searching, it appears that fresh meat does contain a small quantity of vitamin C, and this is sufficient to not contract scurvy. Eating a lot of meat also reduces the amount of vitamin C that you need because one of the main uses of vitamin C is the synthesis of collagen, but this is abated because the meat consumed already contains a lot of collagen.

    The sources for these claims do not appear to be scientifically rigorous but seeing that there have been people who have followed a “carnivore diet” for years without contracting scurvy, it appears to be at least somewhat true.

    Or maybe they’re just taking supplements on the side. That would be the simpler explanation.