MELBOURNE, April 12 (UPI) — An Australian man said 100 days into his potato-only diet that he has already lost 70 pounds and lowered his blood cholesterol.
Andrew Flinders Taylor, 36, of Melbourne, announced in January he would eat nothing but white potatoes and sweet potatoes for 366 days in a bid to improve his health.
Taylor said his diet, along with exercising six days a week, has caused him to lost 70 pounds and he posted a video of his doctor explaining his blood cholesterol has lowered.
“The uric acid level is slightly elevated and I wouldn’t worry about that, that’s commonly observed in people who are rapidly losing weight,” Dr. Malcolm Mackay says in the video. “Generally speaking there’s nothing I’d be concerned about.”
Dr. Joanna McMillan, a health expert, said Taylor’s diet could be having negative consequences that his doctor has yet to notice.
“Doctors usually check cholesterol, blood pressure and blood glucose control,” McMillan told 9news.com.au.
“Simple GP assessment won’t give us a window into what’s happening in his body, [Taylor would] need far more significant and comprehensive tests [for that].The Doctor will not have looked at every single nutrient in the body… measured Omega-3, zinc, or whether calcium has been stripped from his bones.“That won’t show up in 100 days… It takes a long time for something like an iron deficiency to show up, but that certainly will happen eventually.”
