Digesting the latest research on eggs

Eggs are back in the news — again. A study from the March 2019 JAMA found that higher intakes of cholesterol and eggs were associated with a greater risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and death. The researchers reported that ingesting an additional 300 milligrams of cholesterol per day raised this risk, as did eating an average of three to four eggs per week. Should we finally resign ourselves to taking our toast without a sunny-side-up yolk? Not so fast. What did the study find? Human diets are complex and notoriously hard to study. This is one reason why health headlines are often maddeningly contradictory. For the JAMA analysis, participants provided diet information at the beginning of the study that was used to interpret their health up to 30 years later. The JAMA study, like many nutrition studies, was observational. As a result, it could not prove that a particular action (eating more cholesterol or eggs) caused an effect (raising the risk of CVD and death). Still, the results might seem worrisome for egg lovers. The authors themselves note that the effect seen from their study was modest. Higher risks of CVD or death were observed from total dietary cholesterol than from eggs in particular. And the majority of dietary cholesterol reported in this study came from meat sources. Associations were also stronger for people consuming more saturated fat (about 14% of total calories). Saturated fat typically comes from four-legged animals, like cows and pigs, and also fro...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Health Healthy Eating Heart Health Source Type: blogs