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New study confirms that eating eggs increases the risk of a heart disease

Credit: Pixabay

A recent American study signed by the Northwestern Medicine shows that there is a clear link between the high consumption of eggs and cholesterol in general and the risk of developing a heart disease.

Debate over this link

The link between eating eggs and cardiovascular illnesses has been subjected to controversial debate for decades.  For a few years now the medical consensus seems to support the idea that you don’t necessarily need to watch the amount of eggs that you eat.  Those that believe in this idea focus on studies that suggest that bad cholesterol in our food doesn’t necessarily lead to more cholesterol in the blood.  They believe instead that although there is a link, other factors could affect the results.  A person who likes eating eggs at breakfast also might eat them with bacon which is not good for your heart either.

Therefore it is difficult to tell whether it is the eggs themselves that are creating a great risk of cardiovascular illnesses.  What is more the majority of these studies use small trials that are not very diversified and the study does not last long enough for there to be definitive answers.  However a new approach is now looking into the case of 30, 000 individuals of average age who are in good health (in other words without an existing heart disease).  Their study will then follow these individuals for a period of between 17 to 31 years

Norrina Allen, the main author of this study stated that, “One of the strengths of this study is that we had a really large sample. We collected information from individuals across the United States at different ages, across race, ethnicity. So we have a very diverse sample. And we followed them for a long time. We examined their diet, and then we followed them for over 30 years. And really determined what happened to them as they aged.”

eggs
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A risk of more than 6 %

As a result of this study is appears that in general eating 300 mg of cholesterol per day, whether it comes form eggs, red meat or dairy products, incenses your risk of a heart disease by 17%.  As for eggs on their own, if you eat 3 to 4 eggs per week then you increase your risk of having a heart disease by 6% and combined mortality rate increase by 8%.  This is the same for people who carry out regular exercise.

This means that adults who eat more eggs have a significantly greater risk of having a heart disease and have a higher mortality rate, regardless of the cause.  However all the cholesterol found in eggs is contained in the egg yolk.  A large egg generally contains 180 mg of cholesterol.  The study’s author therefore advices us to eat only the egg whites rather than the whole egg or to eat whole eggs in moderation.

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