If you have been told eating eggs presents a risk for cardiovascular disease, you are not alone.
Consuming too many eggs has been considered harmful, especially for people at risk for heart attacks and strokes. This is due to the high cholesterol content in the egg yolk.
But eggs are also a source of high-quality protein, as well as vitamins and bio-active components such as phospholipids and carotenoids.
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Previous studies have looked at associations between egg consumption and its impact on health and the results have been inconsistent. Most of them have not been able to establish a clear link between eating eggs and coronary heart disease (CHD) or stroke.
Now new research from China shows that eggs do not influence the risk of cardiovascular disease.
Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death globally, mostly due to ischemic heart disease and stroke.
In China, stroke is the most responsible for all deaths, followed by heart disease.
For this study, researchers looked at data from the China Kadoorie Biobank (CKB) — an ongoing prospective study of about half a million people investigating the genetic and environmental causes of chronic diseases among the Chinese population.
The CKB consisted of data of Chinese adults aged 30 to 79 years from 10 geographical areas in China.
For this study the researchers focussed on 416, 213 participants recruited between 2004 — 2008. The participants were free from cancer, CVD and diabetes.
At the beginning of the study period, participants were asked about their egg consumption — 13.1 per cent of the participants reported daily consumption and 9.1 per cent reported never indulging in eggs or rarely consuming eggs.
There was a follow-up period of 8.9 years where participant’s health outcomes were monitored, and researchers recorded 83,977 cases of CVD and 9985 CVD deaths as well as 5103 major coronary events.
The analysis of the results revealed that daily egg consumption of up to one a day had a 26 per cent lower risk of haemorrhagic stroke, a 28 per cent lower risk of death from haemorrhagic stroke and an 18 percent lower risk of CVD death.
Additionally, consuming one egg a day — about 5.32 eggs per week — was associated with a 26 per cent lower risk of ischaemic heart disease when compared to those who never or rarely ate eggs.
The researchers conclude that there is a link between moderate egg consumption — one egg per day — and lower cardiac event rate.
This was an observational study and no direct causal link can be made between egg consumption and lower risk of CVD.
However, the large ample size of this study and the considerations made for other potential risk factors for CVD, makes it a possibility that moderate egg consumption is responsible for lower cardiac events.
Source: Heart
