Health Risks In Eating Eggs

Health risks

Cholesterol and fat

More than half the calories found in eggs come from the fat in the yolk; a large (50 gram) chicken egg contains approximately 5 grams of fat.

People on a low-cholesterol diet may need to reduce egg consumption; however, only 27% of the fat in egg is saturated fat.

The egg white consists primarily of water (87%) and protein (13%) and contains no cholesterol and little, if any, fat.

There is debate over whether egg yolk presents a health risk. Some research suggests dietary cholesterol increases the ratio of total to HDL cholesterol and, therefore, adversely affects the body's cholesterol profile; whereas other studies show that moderate consumption of eggs, up to one a day, does not appear to increase heart disease risk in healthy individuals.

Harold McGee argues that the cholesterol in the yolk is not what causes a problem, because fat (in particular, saturated) is much more likely to raise cholesterol levels than the actual consumption of cholesterol.

In a randomized trial, Sacks et al. found that adding one egg per day to the usual diet of 17 lactovegetarians whose habitual cholesterol intake was very low (97 mg/day) significantly increased LDL cholesterol level by 12%.

Type 2 diabetes

Studies have shown conflicting results about a possible connection between egg consumption and type two diabetes.

A 1999 prospective study of over 117,000 people by the Harvard School of Public Health concluded, in part, that "The apparent increased risk of CHD associated with higher egg consumption among diabetic participants warrants further research."

A 2008 study by the Physicians' Health Study I (1982–2007) and the Women's Health Study (1992–2007) determined the “data suggest that high levels of egg consumption (daily) are associated with an increased risk of type 2 diabetes.”

However, a study published in 2010 found no link between egg consumption and type 2 diabetes. A meta-analysis from 2013 finds that each 4 eggs per week that are added to the diet increase the risk of diabetes by 29%.

Cardiovascular risk

Eggs are one of the largest sources of phosphatidylcholine in the human diet. A study published in the scientific journal Nature showed that dietary phosphatidylcholine is digested by bacteria in the gut and eventually converted into the compound TMAO, a compound linked with increased heart disease.


The 1999 Harvard School of Public Health study of 37,851 men and 80,082 women concluded that its "findings suggest that consumption of up to 1 egg per day is unlikely to have substantial overall impact on the risk of CHD or stroke among healthy men and women."

In a study of 4,000 people published in the New England Journal of Medicine, scientists found that eating eggs lead to significantly increased levels of TMAO in the blood of study participants and that this in turn led to significantly higher risk of heart attack and stroke after three years of follow-up.



A 2007 study of nearly 10,000 adults demonstrated no correlation between moderate (six per week) egg consumption and cardiovascular disease or strokes, except in the subpopulation of diabetic patients who presented an increased risk of coronary heart disease.

One potential alternative explanation for the null finding is that background dietary cholesterol may be so high in the usual Western diet that adding somewhat more has little further effect on blood cholesterol.

Other research supports the idea that a high egg intake increases cardiovascular risk in diabetic patients.

A 2009 prospective cohort study of over 21,000 individuals suggests that "egg consumption up to 6/week has no major effect on the risk of CVD and mortality and that consumption of 7+/week is associated with a modest increased risk of total mortality" in males, whereas among males with diabetes, "any egg consumption is associated with an increased risk of all-cause mortality and there was suggestive evidence for an increased risk of MI and stroke".

A meta-analysis published in the British Medical Journal in 2013 found no association between egg consumption and heart disease or stroke.

Cancer

There is evidence to suggest that eggs play a part in colon cancer formation and the spreading of a cancer once it has been established.

Culled from Wikipedia