Is eating eggs unhealthy? If you ask the egg industry they will say no.
But can you trust the egg industry to voluntarily reveal anything bad about their product? After all, isn’t their entire purpose to promote their members product and ensure the long-term profitability of the industry? In other words, is it not the Canadian egg farmers primary purpose to promote the virtue of eggs from a nutrition standpoint to help sway the purchasing habits of consumers?
Over the last number of years we have been flooded with media headlines about the health virtues of eggs and how cholesterol is now considered harmless. A claim that is not supported by the evidence.
““. . . food company sponsorship, whether or not intentionally manipulative, undermines public trust in nutrition science, contributes to public confusion about what to eat, and compromises Dietary Guidelines in ways that are not in the best interest of public health.”
But don’t take our word for it, listen to what a prominent, and truly independent, Canadian researcher says about eggs. His name is J. David Spence, M.D., FRCPC, FAHA Professor of Neurology and Clinical Pharmacology, and Director, Stroke Prevention & Atherosclerosis Research Centre, Robarts Research Institute, Western University, London, ON, Canada.
In his white paper, “Are eggs bad for heart health?”, Dr. Spence says:
“The two main pillars of the egg industry propaganda are a red herring and a half-truth: The red herring is the statement that eggs are safe because they don’t raise your fasting cholesterol by much - and that’s mostly true. Some people do get an increased fasting cholesterol more than others do, but the average increase in fasting cholsterol is about 10%. But saturated fat markedly increases the effect of dietary cholesterol fasting lipids, so bacon and eggs will raise the fasting LDL by much more. However, that’s not what matters! What matters is that for four hours after a high fat/high cholesterol meal, there is a marked increase in oxidation of LDL into the bad form (oxidized cholesterol), the arteries are twitchy (endothelial dysfunction), and the arteries are inflamed. [1, 2] Diet is not about the fasting state, it is about the fed state. The fasting LDL level is mostly determine by how much cholesterol your liver makes overnight, not by what you ate yesterday. It has been known for many years that dietary cholesterol increases coronary risk.” [3, 4]
As it relates to post-meal measurement, Dr. Naomi D.L. Fisher, Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School agrees:
“Perhaps more important, large-scale analyses have shown that non-fasting lipids don’t weaken the connection between cholesterol levels and harmful events like heart attack and stroke. In fact, post-meal measures are thought to strengthen the ability of lipid levels to predict cardiovascular risk. This observation may stem from the fact that most people eat several meals plus snacks during the day. That means we spend most of our time in a “fed” state, not a fasting state. So lipid levels after eating may best reflect our normal physiology.”
Post Prandial Cholesterol
To put it more clinically - the relevant metric to determine the impact of dietary cholesterol on the body is post-prandial, or ‘post-meal cholesterol’. The following video by Dr. Michael Greger, of Nutrition Facts, a physician, speaker, New York Times Best Selling author of How Not To Die and graduate of Cornell University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Tufts University School of Medicine, explains how the egg industry designs, and funds studies, to convince you cholesterol is harmless:
The cholesterol in eggs not only worsens the effects of saturated fat, but has a dramatic effect on the level of cholesterol and fat circulating in our bloodstream during the day.
Choline and Prostate Cancer
The egg industry also promotes the virtue of the choline contained in eggs for brain health. However, as Dr. Spence points out:
“Egg yolk is very high in cholesterol, and in phosphatidylcholine, which is converted by the intestinal bacteria to trimethylamine. Trimethylamine is oxidized in the liver to trimethylaime N-oxide (TMAO), which is bad for the arteries.[5] The other dietary substance that is largely responsible for formation of TMAO is carnitine, mainly from red meat.[5] Among patients referred to the Cleveland Clinic for coronary angiograms, TMAO levels were measured after a test dose of two hard-boiled eggs. Those with TMAO levels in the top quartile had a 2.5-fold increase in the 3-year risk of stroke, heart attack or vascular death.[6] Among people with impaired kidney function, high levels of TMAO make the kidneys get worse faster, and increase mortality.”[7]
High concentrations of dietary choline has other risk factors, in particular, as it relates to prostate cancer. Dr. Gregor’s video below explains both the pro-atherosclerotic and cancer risk factors associated with egg consumption:
Establishing a Proper Baseline
Egg industry advertising throughout North America generally promotes the idea that eggs are part of a healthy diet for healthy people. There are two U.S. studies, in particular, that the egg industry relies on for this claim. These two studies showed harm only among test subjects who became diabetic during followups. In other words, for those patients who became diabetic, an egg a day doubled their risk for a coronary event. But as Dr. Spence points out, “ . . . the U.S. diet is so bad that it is hard to show that anything makes it worse: the American Heart Association reported in 2015 that only 0.1% of Americans consume a healthy diet, and only 8.3% consume a somewhat healthy diet.” In other words, the American diet is so unhealthy that introducing eggs to it will have little effect.”
But take a culture where a healthy diet is fairly ubiquitous like Greece where the ‘Mediterranean diet’ is the norm, and then introduce eggs into it. That harm can easily be seen. Dr. Spence highlights that, “among Greek diabetics, an egg a day increased coronary risk 5-fold, and even 10 grams a day of egg (a sixth of a large egg) increased coronary risk by 59%.”
“The latest evidence, published recently in JAMA, is that both dietary cholesterol and egg consumption increase cardiovascular risk. In a pooled analysis of data in 29,615 Americans followed for a median of 17.5 years, there was a dose-dependent increase in cardiovascular risk with both dietary cholesterol and eggs.”[8]
“Compared with the meta-analyses and reviews previously published, this report is far more comprehensive, with enough data to make a strong statement that eggs and overall dietary cholesterol intake remain important in affecting the risk of CVD and more so the risk of all-cause mortality.”
Summary
To learn more about the impact of eggs on human health, we encourage you to read more here. We understand that for many people giving up, or reducing, their egg consumption could be difficult. Fortunately, there are a lot of egg-free alternatives on the market that are delicious and healthy. To learn about some of those products, check out our “egg-alternatives” page here. And if you’re stuck for recipe ideas, we have many delicious, egg and dairy-free recipes on our blog dating back a year-and-a-half. And feel free to download our 8-page booklet called, “Egg-Free, Get Started”.
Thanks for reading!
References:
Spence JD, Jenkins DJ, Davignon J. Dietary cholesterol and egg yolks: Not for patients at risk of vascular disease. Can J Cardio. 2010;26(9):e336-e9
Ghanim H, Abuaysheh S, Sia CL, Korzeniewski K, Chaudhuri A, Fernandez-Real JM, et al. Increase in plasma endotoxin concentrations and the expression of Toll-like receptors and suppressor of cytokine signaling-3 in mononuclear cells after a high-fat, high-carbohydrate meal: implications for insulin resistance. Diabetes Care. 2009;32(12):2281-7.
Kushi LH, Lew RA, Stare FJ, Ellison CR, el LM, Bourke G, et al. Diet and 20-year mortality from coronary heart disease. The Ireland-Boston Diet-Heart Study. N Engl J Med. 1985;312(13):811-8.
Shekell RB, Shryock AM, Paul O, Lepper M, Stamler J, Liu S, et al. Diet, serum cholesterol, and death from coronary heart disease. The Western Electric study. N Engl J Med. 1981;304(2):65-70.
Koeth RA, Wang Z, Levison BS, Buffa JA, Org E, Sheehy BT, et al. Intestinal microbiota metabolism of l-carnitine, a nutrient in red meat, promotes atherosclerosis. Nat Med. 2013;19(5):576-85.
Tang WHW, Wang Z, Levinson BS, Koeth RA, Britt EB, Fu X, et al. Intestinal Microbiota Metabolism of Phosphatidylcholine and Cardiovascular Risk. New England Journal of Medicine. 2013;368(17):1575-84.
Tang WH, Wang Z, Kennedy DJ, Wu Y, Buffa JA, Agatisa-Boyle B, et al. But microbiota-dependent trimethylaimine N-oxide (TMAO) pathway contributes to both development of renal insufficiency and mortality risk in chronic kidney disease. Circ Res. 2015;116(3):448-55.
Zhong VW, Van Horn L, Cornelis MC, Wilkins JT, Ning H, Carnethon MR, et al. Associations of Dietary Cholesterol or Egg Consumption With Incident Cardiovascular Disease and Mortality. JAMA. 2019;321(11):1081-95.
Nigel Osborne is the Executive Dir. of Egg-Truth. Nigel has years of experience related to animal rights and on-line advocacy. Nigel's extensive background in the publishing, outdoor advertising, printing and web design industries over the last 25 years provides him with a strong, creative acumen and business management experience. Through Egg-Truth.com and it's social media channels, Nigel seeks to increase awareness among the public about global egg production, expose the conditions for the billions of hens condemned to laying every year, and reveal the true impact of egg consumption on human health.