For no other kind of food the results of the studies attempting to determine whether the consumption is good or bad for cardiovascular health have been so contradictory as for eggs.
There have been a lot of studies that have said that eggs are bad for cardiovascular health and a lot of studies that have said that they are good.
Among the more recent studies the conclusions that they are good have been more frequent.
I believe that an important reason for the contradictory results is that I have seen no study that took care to take into consideration how the eggs have been cooked.
Some people cook eggs using methods that do not modify the eggs much, except for the thermal denaturation of the proteins (which is desirable in eggs, to deactivate harmful proteins, like avidin), e.g. by microwaving or boiling, while others may fry the eggs in oil.
The differences between the health effects of such differently cooked eggs are expected to be great.
Or else many people might eat the eggs together with other kinds of food, e.g. with ham, and the food with which eggs are combined might have a more important effect on health than the eggs.
So it is still not settled whether eggs are healthy or not, but it seems much more likely that, at least by themselves, eggs should be good for cardiovascular health, at least up to 1 or 2 per day.
I remember when I was a kid, eggs were bad because they had cholesterol and cholesterol was bad for your heart. Later, there were two types of cholesterol and eggs had the good kind.
It's not stopping me from enjoying my soft boiled egg. But do I understand correctly that fried eggs are less good? What about omelette? Also, who microwaves eggs?
> do I understand correctly that fried eggs are less good?
Only if you overheat the oil or use something heavily processed. Eggs gently fried in olive or avocado oil; butter; cream; or even a good lard are fine in that we don't have strong evidence one way or another. (Of course, assuming you're healthy.)
We have pretty good evidence that increasing consumption of saturated fat increases risk of cardiovascular disease, so I’m not sure why we’d think frying eggs in lard and butter would be health promoting above frying them in a processed vegetable oil.
This just sounds like a semantic disagreement. I believe the evidence base presented in the paper is a pretty fair representation of the field, and justifies the authors’ statement:
> the totality of the evidence supports the recommendation to limit SFA intake to <10% TDE for the general healthy population
I would call this pretty good evidence. Perhaps you wouldn’t but, as I say, that’s probably just a semantic disagreement.
Sure, I would too. I wouldn't call it strong evidence one way or another. The error bars suggest there is too much in-population variance to come up with useful general guidelines. (Frying an egg in a tablespoon of lard every day wouldn't constitute 10% TDE on a 2,000-calorie diet, for example.)
It’s not the cholesterol itself that’s “good” or “bad”, but there are lipoproteins in the body that transport the cholesterol that have differing effects on CVD risk.
The evidence would suggest that dietary cholesterol does increase CVD risk, but the impact really tails off quickly. So if you have little to no dietary cholesterol, consuming eggs will likely raise your blood lipids. If you already have some dietary cholesterol, the impact on blood lipids will likely be small. However, I think there are genetic differences that can change the risk profile significantly.
I suspect that the main modifying effects of frying would be:
1. increasing saturated fat intake
2. increasing calorie intake
Eggs are perfectly fine if you don't have a genetic predisposition to high cholesterol.
My genes are bad though for this so eating a 180mg of cholesterol an egg is kind of foolish. If I want to raise my cholesterol on a blood test, I can't think of anything better than eating a ton of eggs. Of course not all the cholesterol is absorbed but if even 10% is 18mg an egg I don't need.
Personally, I quit eating cheese and eggs to avoid having to be on a statin. It has worked so for on a blood test.
This study has done nothing to remove survivorship bias.
That in itself makes the study results contradictory.
If, for example, we assume egg consumption increases the risk of CVD, as other studies have shown, then if you’re someone who made it to the age of 70 while still consuming eggs you’re likely to be someone whose other factors, such as genetics or the rest of your diet, or your stress levels makes you less likely to get CVD. Even in that case, given a sufficient number of CVD related mortality events before the age of 70, this study would still show a negative correlation between egg consumption and CVD events on those over the age of 70.
A further issue is that people who stop eating eggs completely are very likely to have done so for health reasons. In that sense, this study is very similar to the studies showing a slight health benefit to drinking 1-2 glasses of wine daily as opposed to not drinking at all. Once you account for the fact that the reason most of the non drinkers are non drinkers is because of bad health outcomes in the past in the first place, the wine drinking benefit disappears, and you get back to the positive correlation between alcohol consumption and ill health.
> Background/Objectives: Egg consumption in adults has been linked with a modestly increased risk of all-cause and CVD mortality. However, evidence on adults aged 65 y+ is limited.
So, according to the authors of the study, it has already been established that egg consumption in adults is linked with increased mortality, but they wanted to see if this is still true for those 65 years and older.
The study found lower mortality in those who reported eating eggs weekly compared to those who ate eggs never or infrequently. It did not establish causality. So it could be that eggs improve the health of the elderly, or it could be that healthy elderly people are more able to cook for themselves, and people who cook for themselves are more likely to eat eggs. The study does not distinguish between these possibilities.
The same findings have been made with other animal protein in general, the going theory is that animal foods are protein dense and protect against sarcopenia which is very well established to contribute a lot to all cause mortality in the elderly.
It seems almost impossible to get the elderly to eat enough protein. Even those aware that they should be changing their diet. A lifetime of habit and greatly diminished appetite means pushing protein dense foods. I've very grateful for studies such as this, to help with my thankfully scientifically minded seniors. If you can only fit in a spoonful or two, you have to make it count.
Adding and mixing some protein powder, e.g. whey protein concentrate, into various kinds of foods can enrich them greatly in protein, with a very small increase in bulk, so one can have an adequate protein intake without eating much.
Presumably the increased cardiovascular disease risk from animal protein in general, most evident in processed meat, then red meat, then other sources in order of effect size.
Not so sure about cancer risk outside of the colorectal cancer risk associated with processed meat and unprocessed red meat.
So far the studies that appear to show a correlation between meat consumption and negative health outcomes have all been barely a step above junk science. We're talking about observational studies with poor controls (healthy subject effect), multiple uncontrolled variables, and small effect sizes.
I would say that the evidence on red and processed meat and CVD and CRC is at least a “B”, so we’re meeting your goalposts here.
When we look at the totality of the evidence via meta analysis, we see effect sizes in the 10-20% range for IHD. If 20% change in one of the leading killers in the western world is “small” to you then fair enough, but I’d suspect that’s a fairly proprietary use of the word that wouldn’t accord with what most people mean when they use it.
I’m not sure what variables you think are uncontrolled in these studies, you’ll have to be specific about which uncontrolled variables you think are having an effect.
This answer seems plausible, but I also see no control for people who eat eggs through their entire life being more likely to die prematurely or those taking measures like not eating eggs being deeply unhealthy.
I have been eating 3-5 eggs a day for 6+ years. Eggs have always been one of my favorite foods. Recently had my blood work done and everything was within normal ranges. I'm in my 30's, will report back in 30 years
I actually think the consensus in the scientific field is fairly well established, but media reporting likes to have good guys and villains, so the message “good in some contexts, not so good in others” is quickly discarded.
Good overview from 4 years ago here, but nothing in it is outdated. All references in the description:
https://youtu.be/G1NZNKn9DG8
Articles stuck in the cholesterol myth can be ignored. There are plenty of good studies. I eat 5 per day, barely fried, as close to raw as possible. At least keep the joke fluid. If you have poor health and salmonella worries you have some tomato juice with it.
This article seems to be dispelling the cholesterol "myth". The notion that high levels of cholesterol is bad for your health seems to be a myth for many people, but not all people, depending on your genetics.
The evidence that high levels of serum cholesterol are associated with negative health effects is overwhelming.
The relationship between dietary cholesterol and health is more nuanced and depends on context. When you take the context into account, the results of these studies all tend to concord with one another.
My doctor believes the cholesterol myth even after my blood work came back normal. I was told I need to "clean up my diet" without any recommendations. Doc was basically saying eggs bad.
Maybe? Wondering whether they’re referring to the lipid hypothesis, diet heart hypothesis or, as you say, the contribution of dietary cholesterol to serum cholesterol.
I wouldn’t consider any of those to be myths, FWIW.
Must be all the cholesterol they warned us about.
I am sure we were told not to eat eggs.
Well cool hand Luke eat them and he had a long and healthy life.
There have been a lot of studies that have said that eggs are bad for cardiovascular health and a lot of studies that have said that they are good.
Among the more recent studies the conclusions that they are good have been more frequent.
I believe that an important reason for the contradictory results is that I have seen no study that took care to take into consideration how the eggs have been cooked.
Some people cook eggs using methods that do not modify the eggs much, except for the thermal denaturation of the proteins (which is desirable in eggs, to deactivate harmful proteins, like avidin), e.g. by microwaving or boiling, while others may fry the eggs in oil.
The differences between the health effects of such differently cooked eggs are expected to be great.
Or else many people might eat the eggs together with other kinds of food, e.g. with ham, and the food with which eggs are combined might have a more important effect on health than the eggs.
So it is still not settled whether eggs are healthy or not, but it seems much more likely that, at least by themselves, eggs should be good for cardiovascular health, at least up to 1 or 2 per day.
It's not stopping me from enjoying my soft boiled egg. But do I understand correctly that fried eggs are less good? What about omelette? Also, who microwaves eggs?
Only if you overheat the oil or use something heavily processed. Eggs gently fried in olive or avocado oil; butter; cream; or even a good lard are fine in that we don't have strong evidence one way or another. (Of course, assuming you're healthy.)
We have evidence to suspect this [1]. We are not yet able to predict in which people it’s the case moreso (or at all) than others.
[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34649831/
> the totality of the evidence supports the recommendation to limit SFA intake to <10% TDE for the general healthy population
I would call this pretty good evidence. Perhaps you wouldn’t but, as I say, that’s probably just a semantic disagreement.
Sure, I would too. I wouldn't call it strong evidence one way or another. The error bars suggest there is too much in-population variance to come up with useful general guidelines. (Frying an egg in a tablespoon of lard every day wouldn't constitute 10% TDE on a 2,000-calorie diet, for example.)
I’m not sure I’d agree there. What’s the argument for that?
The evidence would suggest that dietary cholesterol does increase CVD risk, but the impact really tails off quickly. So if you have little to no dietary cholesterol, consuming eggs will likely raise your blood lipids. If you already have some dietary cholesterol, the impact on blood lipids will likely be small. However, I think there are genetic differences that can change the risk profile significantly.
I suspect that the main modifying effects of frying would be: 1. increasing saturated fat intake 2. increasing calorie intake
Eggs are perfectly fine if you don't have a genetic predisposition to high cholesterol.
My genes are bad though for this so eating a 180mg of cholesterol an egg is kind of foolish. If I want to raise my cholesterol on a blood test, I can't think of anything better than eating a ton of eggs. Of course not all the cholesterol is absorbed but if even 10% is 18mg an egg I don't need.
Personally, I quit eating cheese and eggs to avoid having to be on a statin. It has worked so for on a blood test.
This study has done nothing to remove survivorship bias.
That in itself makes the study results contradictory.
If, for example, we assume egg consumption increases the risk of CVD, as other studies have shown, then if you’re someone who made it to the age of 70 while still consuming eggs you’re likely to be someone whose other factors, such as genetics or the rest of your diet, or your stress levels makes you less likely to get CVD. Even in that case, given a sufficient number of CVD related mortality events before the age of 70, this study would still show a negative correlation between egg consumption and CVD events on those over the age of 70.
A further issue is that people who stop eating eggs completely are very likely to have done so for health reasons. In that sense, this study is very similar to the studies showing a slight health benefit to drinking 1-2 glasses of wine daily as opposed to not drinking at all. Once you account for the fact that the reason most of the non drinkers are non drinkers is because of bad health outcomes in the past in the first place, the wine drinking benefit disappears, and you get back to the positive correlation between alcohol consumption and ill health.
So, according to the authors of the study, it has already been established that egg consumption in adults is linked with increased mortality, but they wanted to see if this is still true for those 65 years and older.
The study found lower mortality in those who reported eating eggs weekly compared to those who ate eggs never or infrequently. It did not establish causality. So it could be that eggs improve the health of the elderly, or it could be that healthy elderly people are more able to cook for themselves, and people who cook for themselves are more likely to eat eggs. The study does not distinguish between these possibilities.
Not so sure about cancer risk outside of the colorectal cancer risk associated with processed meat and unprocessed red meat.
https://www.aafp.org/pubs/afp/authors/ebm-toolkit.html?cmpid...
So far the studies that appear to show a correlation between meat consumption and negative health outcomes have all been barely a step above junk science. We're talking about observational studies with poor controls (healthy subject effect), multiple uncontrolled variables, and small effect sizes.
https://peterattiamd.com/meat-consumption-and-diabetes/
https://peterattiamd.com/donlayman/
When we look at the totality of the evidence via meta analysis, we see effect sizes in the 10-20% range for IHD. If 20% change in one of the leading killers in the western world is “small” to you then fair enough, but I’d suspect that’s a fairly proprietary use of the word that wouldn’t accord with what most people mean when they use it.
I’m not sure what variables you think are uncontrolled in these studies, you’ll have to be specific about which uncontrolled variables you think are having an effect.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10408398.2021.1...
US egg prices increased 22% in 2025 and 202% in 12 months
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42950929
(oh well, guess we're all gonna die of.....cardiovascul...<ongoing covid/bird flu pandemics>)
Good overview from 4 years ago here, but nothing in it is outdated. All references in the description: https://youtu.be/G1NZNKn9DG8
The relationship between dietary cholesterol and health is more nuanced and depends on context. When you take the context into account, the results of these studies all tend to concord with one another.
I wouldn’t consider any of those to be myths, FWIW.