You may have read about some recently publicized research that says eggs are linked to a higher risk of heart disease and death. The article from the Journal of the American Medical Association is titled “Association of dietary cholesterol or egg consumption with incidence of cardiovascular disease and death.” Despite numerous published, peer-reviewed articles, the authors concluded “Among US adults, higher consumption of dietary cholesterol or eggs was significantly associated with higher risk of incidence of cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality in a dose-response manner. These results should be considered in the development of dietary guidelines and updates.” The research was reported on by USANews.
BUT
While the research may cause some egg eaters to be considered, it must be remembered that there are many limitations to the research, as was reported on by other news agencies such as USAToday and Time.
The data used in the research was from six studies in the Lifetime Risk Pooling Project. This project followed 29,000+ people for about 17.5 years. During that period of time, there were a total of 5,400 incidences of cardiovascular disease, which could have been fatal or nonfatal. What the study showed was an association and not a cause and effect relationship. It is impossible to account for changes to people’s diets over that long of a time period.
There are also factors that they may not have taken into consideration. Many other foods may accompany eggs in a traditional American breakfast. These include bacon, sausage and hams which can have lots of sodium, and the saturated fat or oils with trans fats used to fry the eggs and the hash browns.
Lifestyle, not egg consumption, has often been shown to be related to increased incidences of heart disease.