What started as one man's attempt to better himself after romantic rejection nearly ended his life.
Dr. Bernard Hsu is an American oncologist who hosts the YouTube channel Chubbyemu, which examines unusual medical cases.One of his recent cases explored a woman's extreme diet attempt that almost cost her her life, after she consumed tapeworm eggs purchased from the deep web as part of a 'controversial' weight-loss method.
This time, Dr. Hsu shares a man he refers to only as 'JZ,' who channelled his heartbreak over a failed relationship into gym workouts and self-improvement.
"JZ was building muscle. He read online about how you needed to do more than just lift weights," Hsu said. "What he needed was to eat protein."
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During his journey, JZ noticed he wasn't eating as much meat and eggs as he used to and so he started replacing them with protein bars.
"He saw that these bars were cheaper than regular food. He also noticed that these bars were calorie-dense, so for every bite of bar, it was a shortcut to getting his daily requirements," the medical expert explained.
According to Hsu, JZ read that he needed 'one gram of protein per pound of his target bodyweight daily' to achieve his muscle-building goals. "If he wanted to be 400 pounds of muscle and each bar had 20 grams of protein each, then it meant that eating 20 of these bars daily was the way," Dr. Hsu said.
After about a month, the 22-year-old started experiencing problems when he 'stopped having bowel movements altogether' and noticed that his 'gut was growing.'
Days passed and JZ's appetite diminished while his bloating increased dramatically. Eventually, extreme abdominal pain forced JZ to seek emergency medical care, where doctors assessed his condition.
When physicians asked about his recent diet, JZ admitted he'd been eating nothing but protein bars every single day for the past six weeks.
In the YouTube video, Dr. Hsu demonstrated that protein bars become extremely 'thick' when combined with little water, so consuming too many daily can cause serious digestive problems. If sufficient water is consumed with the bars, they can pass through the gut more easily. But since protein bars were literally all JZ was eating, the result was a 'dilated bowel in the abdomen' visible on his abdominal X-ray.
So what was happening internally? Well, simply put, the gastrointestinal tract is a long series of connected tubes running through the body, creating multiple points where digested food can get stuck.
Fatty foods and thick substances that aren't flushed down with adequate liquids can cause blockages. When a blockage forms, food consumed afterwards continues being digested, which only 'adds pressure to the blockage.'
The gut walls then begin stretching as more material piles up behind the obstruction. This stretching compresses the surrounding blood vessels, cutting off the tissue's oxygen supply. In severe or untreated cases, the gut can rupture, spilling its contents - including fluids and bacteria - into the body.
In JZ's situation, his long sigmoid colon (the S-shaped section of the large intestine) had become both blocked and twisted, making even slight coughs or attempts at bowel movements agonisingly painful.
"Surgeons were able to successfully detorse and decompress JZ's colon," Dr. Hsu assured, adding that there is 'no shortcut' to self-improvement.