Articles and Papers
Egg a day unlikely to raise heart risk
By LORI VALIGRA CAMBRIDGE, Mass., April 21 (UPI) Having an egg a day is unlikely to increase the risk of heart disease or stroke in healthy people, Harvard University researchers say.
Although this appears to contradict current American Heart Association recommendations of no more than three to four egg yolks per week, the Harvard researchers and other public health experts still urge moderation in egg consumption. The study appears in Wednesday's issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association.
Dr. Frank Hu, an epidemiologist at the Harvard School of Public Health who led the study, and his colleagues tracked the egg consumption of more than 100,000 health professionals who reported their eating habits. The study subjects were participants in two large, long-term health studies: The Nurses' Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study. To avoid elevations in blood cholesterol and to reduce risk of coronary heart disease, the American Heart Association has advised the public to eat a maximum of 300 milligrams per day of cholesterol and limit egg consumption. Eggs contain about 213 milligrams of cholesterol each. Most of the cholesterol is in the egg yolk.
Hu said the study factors in eggs eaten plain and eaten as ingredients in pancakes or other prepared foods. "Moderate egg consumption does not have a major effect on atherosclerosis (clogging of the arteries) and can be part of a nutritious and healthy diet as long as the overall diet is balanced,"
Hu said the study does not give all people a green light to eat more eggs. He said people need to be cautious, especially diabetics and those with high cholesterol. "Not everyone in the world can go and eat one egg per day," said Dr. William Krauss, head of molecular medicine at the University of California at Berkeley and a member of the American Heart Association's nutrition committee. "The American Heart Association and other responsible public health associations won't change their guidelines of 3-4 eggs per week."
Krauss added that most of the study participants were health professionals who ate well anyway and tended to eat fewer eggs. The authors speculated that one reason an egg a day doesn't seem to impact heart disease or stroke risk is because there might be nutrients in eggs that are beneficial in preventing coronary heart disease.
However, one group of people who seem to be at higher risk for coronary heart disease if they eat too many eggs are people with diabetes. The researchers said this might be because they have an abnormal cholesterol transport mechanism. The average American ate 245 eggs per year in 1998, up from the 240 in 1997 but much lower than the peak of 402 in 1945, according to the American Egg Board, a Washington, D.C., group that represents egg producers.
The American Egg Board welcomed the results of the study, saying that eggs are a good source of protein and have 13 different vitamins and minerals.
"The Harvard research is really the culmination of a growing body of published data indicating that egg consumption does not measurably raise blood cholesterol levels or have an independent effect on heart disease risk," said Donald McNamara, executive director of the American Egg Board's Egg Nutrition Center. He added, "We hope the study will once and for all exonerate the egg, so that people can enjoy its many nutrition benefits without unwarranted fears of dietary cholesterol."
But Hu said people who eat eggs tend to eat them with other cholesterol-rich foods such as sausage or bacon. Hu recommends not focusing on just one cholesterol-rich food, ut on eating a healthy and balanced diet, reducing the intake of saturated fat (those that are solid at room temperature such as butter) and trans fat (vegetable oil that has been processed into a solid) and eating more grains, fruits and vegetables.