One Egg a Day Causes No Harm, Finds a New Study

Akshay Naik 31 January 2020

Eggs are a rich source of essential nutrients, from protein to choline; but they are also a source of dietary cholesterol. Numerous studies in the past have published contradictory findings about the benefits of, or harm caused by, regular egg consumption. Now, a new study has found that consuming one egg daily is not tied to higher blood cholesterol levels and cardiovascular disease, even in individuals with a history of such conditions.

Researchers at the Population Health Research Institute (PHRI) of McMaster University and Hamilton Health Sciences published their findings which counter old-school nutritional guidance. The findings have been published in the journal American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

For the study, researchers analysed data from three large multinational studies involving over 177,000 healthy and vascular disease participants, covering people from a total of 50 countries and six continents at different income levels. The three studies, which were conducted by PHRI in the past, recorded egg consumption of 146,011 individuals from 21 countries in the ‘Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiology’ (PURE) study and in 31,544 patients with vascular disease from the ‘Ongoing Telmisartan Alone and in Combination with Ramipril Global Endpoint Trial’ (ONTARGET) and the ‘Telmisartan Randomised Assessment Study in ACE Intolerant Subjects With Cardiovascular Disease’ (TRANSCEND) studies.

Dr Salim Yusuf, principal researcher of the PHRI study and director of PHRI, believes that previous studies on egg consumption and diseases have been contradictory due to their relatively small sample size. “This is because most of these studies were relatively small or moderate in size and did not include individuals from a large number of countries,” he said.

The results of this study suggest that there is no harm from consuming eggs, given that the majority of individuals in the study consumed moderate amounts of eggs, according to researchers.

“Moderate egg intake, which is about one egg per day in most people, does not increase the risk of cardiovascular disease or mortality even if people have a history of cardiovascular disease (CVD) or diabetes,” said Dr Mahshid Dehghan, author of the study and PHRI researcher.

“Also, no association was found between egg intake and blood cholesterol, its components or other risk factors. These results are robust and widely applicable to both healthy individuals and those with vascular disease,” she further added.

The study also reports that effects of egg consumption may vary across populations with varying diet quality, such as a low- or high-carbohydrate diet.

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