8866
Eggs Do Not Cause Heart Attacks
For more than 40 years, doctors have told us that eating eggs causes heart attacks. A report in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed that they don't (1).
Adding three eggs per day to the average Americans' diet does not raise cholesterol levels. Cholesterol in eggs has very little effect on blood cholesterol levels in healthy adults (2, 3). Several studies show no relationship between eating eggs and increased risk for heart disease or stroke (4, 5), and most people can eat one egg a day without increasing heart disease risk (6).
Eggs are high in fat, saturated fat and cholesterol which can raise blood cholesterol levels to increase risk for heart attacks, but heart attacks are not caused by saturated fat or cholesterol unless you take in too much. All meat, chicken, diary products, fish, shell fish and eggs contain both saturated fats and cholesterol. It won't hurt you to eat eggs if you restrict the other sources of cholesterol and saturated fats. Most people should not eat more than eight eggs a week because that exceeds the recommenced limits. You get far more cholesterol and saturated fats from eating a roast beef sandwich than you get from eating an egg.
The Keys and Parlin equation predicts that one egg a day should raise blood cholesterol levels four percent and increase heart attack risk by eight percent (7). The authors did not find this increase, so eggs may have other components that help prevent heart attacks. The Mensink-Katan equation predicts that one egg should raise the good HDL cholesterol by two percent and lower triglycerides by two percent (8) and protect you from the cholesterol in eggs. Eggs contain heart-attack preventing vitamin D, retinol, folic acid, monounsaturated fat, vitamin B12, linoleic acid, calcium, B1 and B2. The average North American takes in so much cholesterol from meat and diary products that the extra cholesterol from one egg is insignificant.
1) JAMA, April 21, 1999 p 1387-1394.
2)N Engl J Med 1997;337:1491-9
3) Am J Clin Nutr 1997;65:1747-64
4)JAMA 1999;281:1387-1394
5) Med Sci Monit 2007;13(1):CR1-8
6) N Engl J Med 1997;337:1491-9
7) Am J of Clin Nutr 1966;19:175-181.
8) Arteriosclerosis Thromb Vasc Biol 1992;12:911-919.
Checked 12/1/08