The "carnivore diet" is one of the many trendy eating fads that have experienced a rise in popularity in recent years. However, we've been treated to a cautionary tale courtesy of a man in Florida who ended up with excess cholesterol leaking out of his body after taking things a bit too far.

There's no shortage of fad diets you can turn to if you're trying to switch up your eating habits to shed some pounds and reap some of the potential health benefits, and there are more than a few that tend to appeal to people with an affinity for meat due to the foundation they're built on.

You can check that particular box if you opt for the paleo approach, but people who want to go all-in on the meat front are probably going to be more drawn to the "carnivore diet" (also known as "keto") that largely eschews sugars and carbs (as well as the fruits, vegetables, and other popular foods that contain them) in favor of a heavy rotation of animal products.

The primary appeal of the carnivore diet is the promise of enhanced weight loss by forcing your body to enter a state of ketosis (hence the name) and burn fat for energy as opposed to glucose by primarily subsisting on fat and protein.

With that said, there are some potential downsides, as a regimen consisting of foods like meat, eggs, cheese, and butter is going to contain significantly higher levels of LDL cholesterol than a more balanced diet, which can wreak havoc on your cardiovascular system and increase the chance of succumbing to painful ailments like kidney stones and gout.

According to a paper that was recently published in the medical journal JAMA Cardiology, you also run the risk of having cholesterol leak out of your body based on what happened to a man in Florida who was subscribing to the carnivore diet before heading to the hospital to seek treatment for "yellowish nodules on his palms, soles, and elbows."

The 40-something patient told doctors he'd spent around eight months going the carnivore route with a diet that included "6 to 9 lb of cheese, sticks of butter, and additional fat incorporated into his daily hamburgers" before they ran tests that determined his cholesterol levels were sitting at around 1000 mg/dl (anything over 200 is normally considered on the higher end).

He was ultimately diagnosed with xanthelasma, which is used to describe painless but noticeable yellow deposits of excess cholesterol that can't be processed by your white blood cells. They typically appear around the eyes but managed to make their way to his appendages due to the alarming amount of the substance he was consuming on a regular basis.

The study doesn't mention if he opted to reassess his diet after being informed of the root cause, but it does note the "importance of managing hypercholesterolemia" to avoid befalling that particular fate.