Over Easy

Even though eggs were blacklisted for years due to their high cholesterol content, health professionals now are beginning to rethink them. More evidence is emerging that cholesterol concerns were highly overstated -- a study published in the March 10, 2005, issue of the International Journal of Cardiology demonstrated that healthy adults who ate two eggs a day for six weeks experienced no increase in cholesterol levels or cardiac risk.

The Real Culprit: Saturated Fat

The fact is that dietary cholesterol -- the kind of cholesterol in eggs -- is not the same as blood cholesterol, explains Katherine Tucker, PhD, associate professor of nutritional epidemiology at Tufts University in Boston. High levels of blood cholesterol in the body clog arteries and raise cardiac risk. Dietary cholesterol is less of a problem, because it is not automatically converted into blood cholesterol when you consume it.

When it comes to what you eat, Dr. Tucker says that the real culprit in soaring cholesterol levels is saturated fats, found mostly in meat and dairy products.

About the Study

At the Yale Prevention Research Center in Derby, Connecticut, researchers set out to compare the effects of eating oats (known to be good for the heart) and eggs (generally considered a negative) on cardiovascular risk in 49 healthy adults. They looked at endothelial function -- the movement of blood through blood vessels -- and cholesterol levels.

Researchers found that:

Flow-mediated dilation (FMD) -- a measurement of how effectively the endothelium or blood vessel lining keeps blood moving by widening the vessel -- was stable in people who ate eggs or oats. Eggs did not cause an increase in either total or LDL ("bad") cholesterol. In comparison, oats significantly lowered both -- but oatmeal is a well-known plus factor for the heart, so this came as no revelation. The big news was that eggs were not shown to be "bad."

Note: This study took place in healthy adults, and the results do not necessarily apply to people with elevated lipids, who already are at risk for heart disease. Ongoing research looking at egg consumption in this higher risk group is under way.

Although the study was partially funded by the American Egg Board, Daily Health News contributing editor Andrew L. Rubman, ND, concurs with the findings. He also points out that a significant amount of oat bran contained in oatmeal used in the study is converted by bacteria in the large intestine into butter fat and absorbed. It will be interesting to see, says Dr. Rubman, what the researchers will find in their data comparing butter fat and other short-chain fatty acids with saturated fats from meats. Perhaps the "butter is bad" notion has been overstated as well.

Poached Better Than Fried

All this is not to say that you should start frying up a few eggs for breakfast every morning. Tips for a healthy balance of eggs in the diet include...

Given the new understanding of dietary cholesterol, the American Heart Association (AHA) no longer makes a recommendation about how many egg yolks can be eaten each week. (The yolk contains all the cholesterol -- about 213 mg in a large egg -- and previously the recommendation was three to four weekly.) However, the AHA advises that healthy people limit their daily cholesterol intake to 300 mg (which might include one large egg daily), and those at high risk for or who already have heart disease take in less than 200 mg (one small or medium egg daily, with 157 mg and 187 mg cholesterol respectively). In the meantime, keep an eye on other sources of dietary cholesterol so you don't go over the limit.

How you prepare eggs matters, notes Dr. Tucker. For example, frying or scrambling them in butter or pairing eggs with sausage and bacon is not going to benefit anyone's cardiovascular health. Better choices: A poached or hard-boiled egg.

It's hard to top the nutritional profile of eggs -- they're rich in protein, vitamins and minerals, and low in saturated fat and sodium. Additionally, hard-boiled eggs fit our on-the-go lifestyle -- they're easy to cook, portable and power packed.

Be well, Carole Jackson, Bottom Line's Daily Health News