I like eggs. I could eat a couple of dozen a week, given free rein. However, I've always restrained myself because many people - including doctors - insist that eggs in quantity are bad for you, boosting the production of the 'bad sort' of cholesterol. After my heart attack in October, I was put on a strict ration of no more than two eggs per week, for precisely that reason.
Now, however, I find an article from earlier this year on the BBC Web site debunking the 'egg myth'.
A University of Surrey team said their work suggested most people could eat as many eggs as they wanted without damaging their health.
The researchers, who analysed several studies of egg nutrition, said the idea that eating more than three eggs a week was bad for you was still widespread.
But they said that was a misconception based on out-of-date evidence.
Writing in the British Nutrition Foundation's Nutrition Bulletin, they said eating saturated fats was far more likely to cause health problems.
Researcher Professor Bruce Griffin said eggs were actually a key part of a healthy diet, as they were particularly packed full of nutrients.
He said: "The ingrained misconception linking egg consumption to high blood cholesterol and heart disease must be corrected.
"The amount of saturated fat in our diet exerts an effect on blood cholesterol that is several times greater than the relatively small amounts of dietary cholesterol.
"The UK public do not need to be limiting the number of eggs they eat - indeed they can be encouraged to include them in a healthy diet as they are one of nature's most nutritionally dense foods."
While elevated blood cholesterol levels increase the risk of heart disease, only around a third of the cholesterol in the body comes from the diet.
Other factors such as smoking, being overweight and physical activity can influence blood fat and cholesterol levels and heart disease risk.
The British Heart Foundation (BHF) dropped its advice to limit egg consumption to three a week in 2007 in light of new evidence.
There's more at the link.
Another source tells me that the American Medical Association has gone back and forth on this issue over the years. Does anyone know if there's a definitive answer that can settle this once and for all? Any reliable, evidence-based verdict that will put the myths to rest and give me an honest answer?
All this uncertainty is terribly egg-ravating . . .
Peter
I've been eating 3 omega-3 eggs 5-6 mornings a week for probably 5 years. I have my cholesterol checked every year. Virtually no change.
ReplyDeleteThat's the only study I know of that I can honestly say I truly believe.
Thanks, Peter.
ReplyDeleteAs a fellow cardiac survivor and egg lover, I've wondered the same thing, and it's hard to get current, unbiased information.
It seems that, once a myth attains the status of Revealed Medical Truth, it's hard to undo.
Best advice I got from a variety of hospital nutritionists? "All things in moderation".
One of the real killers (sorry-you like puns) seems to be salt-not the salt you add at the table, but the salt in the canned / prepared / fast food we buy, which averages about 80% of most people's sodium intake.
Solution: learn to cook, and cook from scratch without using salt except to add at the table.
It works.
It's probably the rashers of bacon, sausages, buttered toast and cold cuts and cheese that people eat with the eggs that causes the problem. Although I suspect the Glorious Revolution of 1688 would be nothing compared to what would happen if Britons were ordered to stop eating bacon and sausage!
ReplyDeleteLittleRed1
Actually "salt = high BP" is another of the long running myths.
ReplyDeleteAproximately 10% of the population's systems are sensitive to sodium and will react in such a manner. For the other 90%, high sodium diets are not a problem.
Those 10% are not concentrated in the 'people with heart issues' population.
The reason cutting salt is common advice is not that it is likely to help, but rather that it is *relatively* easy (as dietary changes go) - especially when you are simultaneously making other changes - and sometimes helps.
Re: Anonymous
ReplyDeleteRecent studies have even said bacon is not that bad, possibly even good for you. Which explains why Brigid's doctor keeps giving her a clean bill of health.
Even saturated fats aren't as bad as they've been made out to be over over the past decades. And real butter is better than margarin.
What the food industry has been really poisoning people with is the hydrogenated fats(see margarin above), soy (contains a substance similar to estrogen), and fruit/corn syrup(which has recently been proven to _much_ more fattening than cane sugar, especially gut fatness, though cane sugar should be taken in moderation as well...)
In other words, as long as you stay away from processed foods, you'll be fine. Vary yourself a bit between eggs, fish, and meat, eat vegetables and don't overindulge on carbs, and pretty soon the doctor will be giving you good news after your checkups.
Just as a steak isn't bad for you, neither are eggs. Now if you eat a 16 oz steak a couple times a week, that's bad. And if you eat a dozen eggs a sitting several times a week that's bad.
ReplyDeleteEgg yolks are indeed rather concentrated but not enough to hurt you in reasonable moderation.
What is more likely to be the cause of issue is the heaping piles of near raw bacon (which has more fat then fully cooked as more fat is rendered out the crisper you cook it), toast slathered in butter and fruit flavored high fructose corn syrup, and the scores of various other things we shove in at the same time that all come together to create a mess.
I'll chase you down some links and research later, but the bottom line is that the information the American Heart Association gives out is hideously dated. (Ditto the American Diabetic Association, which grotesquely still recommends that diabetics keep grains as the base of their diets.) Part of the problem is just that studying nutrition is really difficult because of the massive amount of confounding variables, and part of it is that science in general is orthodox-oriented and it gets much more pronounced when so much of the funding is government-provided- and that funding biases the agricultural interests to an extent.
ReplyDeleteSo the short news is that the cholesterol in your diet doesn't come anywhere near to the cholesterol you produce on your own, eggs are largely harmless and are much better when they are from chickens allowed to forage for insects or given omega-3 boosting feed.
The shortest news of all is that if you eat things that are found in nature with minimal applied chemistry and form or formed a major part of a diet of a healthy population somewhere, you should be doing good. Coconut oil, for example, is getting a re-look as a "good" saturated fat (and the notion that how saturated a fat is is even relevant is starting to crumble), but this shouldn't be a surprise- Southeast Asia is not notably obese or riddled with heart disease and they treat it like Italians treat olive oil.
Try Michael Pollan, "In Defense of Food"; he's known as a food advocate but made his bones as a science writer, and he is very good at that and meticulously sourced.
It sounds great, but I'm suspicious of any information emerging from Britain's Health system.
ReplyDeleteAntibubba
I eat two eggs most days, on a salad. No harm done. I'm inclined to believe this report!
ReplyDeletePlease check the Fox News site for Housecalls for 1-3-10. Good info
ReplyDeleteand answers your question.
If it's God-made, it's ok but man-made, I refer you to monosodium glutamate (MSG) which was grandfathered in and can be listed under multiple terms including "natural flavoring".