Netflix Twin Experiment Hits the Global Top 10 Within Days of Release

Netflix's new vegan docuseries You Are What You Eat: A Twin Experiment has gone straight into the global top 10, landing at number three in the English TV chart with 8 million views in its first week.

The figures come from Netflix's own Top 10 report for the week of January 1 to 7, which lists the four-part series as a new entry at #3 with 8M views. Only two English-language titles were watched more that week, the Harlan Coben thriller Fool Me Once and Dave Chappelle's new stand-up special, which is quite a feat for a show about cholesterol. Advanced Television confirmed the same figure.

The series dropped on New Year's Day and is directed by Louie Psihoyos, the Oscar-winning filmmaker behind The Cove and The Game Changers. It follows a Stanford University trial in which 22 pairs of identical twins were split up, with one twin eating a healthy vegan diet and the other a healthy omnivore diet for eight weeks. Because the twins share the same genes (and in most cases grew up in the same house), it's about as fair a fight as nutrition science gets.

The results were published in JAMA Network Open on November 30. The vegan twins' LDL ("bad") cholesterol fell from an average of 110.7 mg/dL to 95.5 mg/dL, while the omnivores barely moved, from 118.5 to 116.1. The vegans also saw about a 20% drop in fasting insulin and lost an average of 4.2lb more than their meat-eating siblings. For the first four weeks a meal service delivered the food, then the participants cooked for themselves, and 21 of the 22 vegans stuck with it.

Senior author Christopher Gardner, the Rehnborg Farquhar Professor and a professor of medicine at Stanford, said in the university's release:

This suggests that anyone who chooses a vegan diet can improve their long-term health in two months, with the most change seen in the first month.

Based on these results and thinking about longevity, most of us would benefit from going to a more plant-based diet.

He added that "what's more important than going strictly vegan is including more plant-based foods into your diet". We couldn't agree more. Every plant-based meal counts.

LDL cholesterol is the main driver of heart disease, still the world's biggest killer. Dr. Kim Williams, the former President of the American College of Cardiology, has been saying for years that a plant-based diet is the best way to bring it down, and now 8 million people have watched identical twins prove the point on their TV.

We covered the study itself when the Stanford twin study showed the vegan twin had a healthier heart in just eight weeks. Netflix is fast becoming the home of the plant-based documentary, from What The Health to The Game Changers, which became the best-selling documentary in iTunes history. And it comes as the American College of Cardiology recommends plant protein and Veganuary passed 700,000 official sign-ups last year.

If you've got a twin, now's the time to start a family competition.