Stop Trashing Eggs: Large Study Finds No Harm
Below is a copy of a recent post where I have commented on about eggs
IdahoSpud:
Link to study (warning: long-winded) here:
No food has had more ups and downs over the last century or so than the common egg. Following a long period in which eggs were ubiquitous and highly regarded, eggs fell from favor with the rise of concerns over cholesterol. Currently the American Heart Association recommends that people restrict dietary cholesterol to 300 mg per day, which effectively limits people to 1 egg per day at most. However, the relationship of dietary cholesterol and serum cholesterol is, at best, tenuous, and a significant number of experts now believe that egg consumption poses no risk to cardiovascular health.
In a new paper published in BMJ, a group of researchers from China and Boston performed a meta-analysis of 8 studies that included 263 938 participants for coronary heart disease (CHD) and 210 404 participants for stroke and followed them for 8 to 22 years. The authors found no evidence for an association between egg consumption and either coronary heart disease or stroke:
•Relative risk of coronary heart disease for adding 1 egg per day: 0.99 (CI 0.85 0 1.15, p=0.88)
•Relative risk of stroke for adding 1 egg per day: 0.91 (CI 0.81 – 1.02, p=0.10)
However, an increased risk for CHD was observed in the subgroup of patients with diabetes in the group of participants with the highest egg consumption compared with those with the lowest consumption (relative risk 1.54, CI 1.14 to 2.09, p=0.01). No similar increase in the risk of stroke was observed in this group, though a protective effect against hemorrhagic stroke was observed in those with the highest egg consumption (relative risk 0.75, CI 0.57 – 0.99, p=.04). The authors cautioned that the findings in the diabetes subgroup required confirmation in additional studies.
The authors concluded that the findings of their meta-analysis “do not support a positive association between egg consumption and cardiovascular disease outcomes in the general population.”
On CardioExchange, the ever-refreshing Richard Lehman waxed eloquent in praise of eggs and offers the following thought:
Quote:
| Why anyone should be troubled by the consumption of eggs as a medical issue, I cannot imagine, but this dose-response meta-analysis of the subject simply reinforces my advice to eat lots of eggs. They do not increase your risk of stroke or coronary disease, but even if they did, it would simply be a good reason to eat as many as you can while you still have the chance. |
Comment: The AHA should long ago have revised its recommendations regarding dietary cholesterol and eggs. There is a reasonable chance that the current position is doing more harm than good. Even if eggs are ultimately found to be somewhat harmful– though that seems unlikely at this point– they are almost certainly better than the replacement foods– mostly containing starches and sugars– toward which most people are likely to turn. Are eggs really worse than, say, a “low fat” (but high calorie and high sugar) muffin?
My comment:
The healthiest types of eggs to eat are free-range ones but make sure they’re guaranteed to be free from genetically modified food types such as GMO corn and so on.
The healthiest way to eat the egg is raw; simply because cooking them will damage the valuable nutrients like lutein and zeaxanthin which we find in the egg yolk.
Now if you don’t like them raw, then I guess the next best thing would be the soft boiled or sunny-side up. But in any case, leave the yolk as runny as possible.
I think I’ll go and make some bacon and eggs now.
Cheers,
Mark