Eggs are inexpensive and full of nutrition, but many are cautious of them due to their high cholesterol content. High blood cholesterol levels have been connected with a higher risk of cardiovascular events and vice versa. For this reason, some sources have recommended that people consume less than 300 mg of cholesterol per day. This practically rules out regular egg consumption since an egg with yolk has about 210 mg of cholesterol.
However, some research suggests that eating cholesterol makes only a modest contribution to blood plasma concentrations of bad cholesterol (LDL). Additionally, eggs are rich in good cholesterol (HDL) which may lower the risk of cardiovascular disease. So are eggs bad for the heart or not?
Research shows that, for people with no associated health problems, one egg per day is not bad. The British Medical Journal recently published a study in which researchers combined the results of 17 different reports covering 3,081,269 person-years. People who consume one egg per day are actually 1% less likely to have coronary heart disease and 9% less likely to have a stroke. For reasons the researchers could not fully explain, people with diabetes seemed to have higher risk of coronary heart disease related to higher egg consumption. So there may be something about eggs that doesn’t work for people with diabetes. Another interesting side-note was that, when tracking hemorrhagic stroke specifically, people with higher egg consumption have a 25% lower risk.
The conclusion is that eggs do not increase the risk of stroke or coronary heart disease for otherwise healthy people.
Source: Ying R, Chen L, Zhu T, et al. Egg consumption and risk of coronary heart disease and stroke: dose-response meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies. BMJ. January 2013.
