That Health Rules

I just received a comment from Nick regarding my post on ” Can I Eat Eggs Everyday” (My most popular post!) and I guess based on the many comments I received, we continue to have mixed beliefs on whether to eat eggs daily or its unsafe to do so because of the risk of heart disease.

So far, I agree with Nick that not a lot of prospective studies have been done to look at eggs per se and heart disease but rather its the relationship between the amount of saturated fat and cholesterol and heart disease that we all know exists.

Here’s a timely article from the Harvard Medical Letter  on the Myths and Facts of Egg Nutrition and Health:

Fact: Eggs are a good source of nutrients. One egg contains 6 grams of protein and some healthful unsaturated fats. Eggs are also a good source of choline, which has been linked with preserving memory, and lutein and zeaxanthin, which may protect against vision loss.

Fact: Eggs have a lot of cholesterol. The average large egg contains 212 milligrams of cholesterol. As foods go, that’s quite a bit, rivaled only by single servings of liver, shrimp, and duck meat.

Myth: All that cholesterol goes straight to your bloodstream and then into your arteries. Not so. For most people, only a small amount of the cholesterol in food passes into the blood. Saturated and trans fats have much bigger effects on blood cholesterol levels.

Myth: Eating eggs is bad for your heart. The only large study to look at the impact of egg consumption on heart disease—not on cholesterol levels or other intermediaries—found no connection between the two.

In people with diabetes, though, egg-a-day eaters were a bit more likely to have developed heart disease than those who rarely ate eggs.If you like eggs, eating one a day should be okay, especially if you cut back on saturated and trans fats. Other ways to enjoy eggs without worrying about cholesterol include not eating the yolk, which contains all the cholesterol, or using pourable egg whites or yolk-free egg substitutes.

There you go: if you want to eat eggs daily: cut back on other sources of fat. It’s the yolk that’s rich in cholestrol so use it sparingly and instead enjoy the egg whites!

The Controversy Continues…..

Read My Other Related Posts:

• Foods To Eat If You Have High Cholesterol
• Is There Such A Thing As Healthy Fat?
• Butter or Margarine: Which Is Better?

This entry was posted on May 2, 2007 at 8:12 am and is filed under General Health Tips, Medical News Bits, Nutrition Health Tips, Tips To Protect Your Heart.