Eggs increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, premature death: Study

Some nutrition experts say eggs are good for you, even though they are high in cholesterol. Others are sure they are bad. A large new study may help resolve at least some of the confusion.

The new analysis looked at data from six large prospective studies involving almost 30,000 participants, with an average follow-up of more than 17 years. It found that for each additional 300 milligrams a day of cholesterol in the diet, there was a 17 per cent increased risk of cardiovascular disease and an 18 per cent increased risk of premature death from any cause.

Eggs alone — a large egg has about 185 milligrams of cholesterol, all of it contained in the yolk — had the same more-is-worse effect. Each additional half-egg a day was associated with a six per cent increased risk of cardiovascular disease and an eight per cent increased risk of early death.

The study findings are observational and cannot establish cause and effect. But no matter how heart-healthy the rest of a person’s diet, the more eggs consumed, the greater the risk for cardiovascular events, coronary heart disease, stroke, heart failure and premature death. The same was true for dietary cholesterol, independent of other dietary characteristics: The more cholesterol in your diet, the higher the risk for disease. The findings were published in JAMA. Robert H Eckel, a professor of medicine at the University of Colorado who wrote an editorial accompanying the study, called the work far more comprehensive than previous reviews. There is “enough data to make a strong statement that eggs and overall dietary cholesterol intake remain important in affecting the risk of cardiovascular disease, and more so the risk of all-cause mortality,” he wrote.

The authors say that the average cholesterol consumption of Americans has not changed much over the last few decades — about 300 milligrams a day. But even at that level, they found, dietary cholesterol is tied to an increased risk for cardiovascular problems.

There are many other risk factors for heart disease besides diet, and the numbers the authors cite indicate the percentage of additional risk from a high-cholesterol diet, so the effect is not striking. But because heart disease is the most common cause of death in the United States — more common than all forms of cancer combined — even a small relative increase in rates of illness means a large increase in the number of deaths.

“This study takes into account the general quality of the diet and adjusts for it,” said Norrina B Allen, the lead author of the new study and an associate professor of epidemiology at Northwestern. “We really were focused on the independent effects of eggs and dietary cholesterol. For example, healthier people tend to eat more eggs because they feel there’s a lot of protein in them, but even for healthy people on healthy diets, the harmful effect of eggs and cholesterol was consistent.”

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