An Egg A Day Keeps Doctors Away?

Cardiovascular disease is a leading cause of disability and death around the world, due to stroke, and ischaemic heart disease which are at the top of the leaders in most Western countries.

Studies conducted in the past looking at associations between eggs and their impact on health have been at the lease inconsistent, with most of them finding nothing but insignificant associations between eggs and coronary heart disease and stroke. A team from China designed this study to set out and examine the associations.

Using data from the China Kadoorie Biobank consisting of 512,891 adults between the ages of 30-79 from 10 different geographical areas within China. Participants were asked about egg consumption and followed up on to assess morbidity and mortality. Researchers focused on 416,213 of the participants which were free of any prior diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular disease.

From the median group at follow up of 8.9 years a total of 5,103 major coronary events, 9,985 deaths, and 83,977 cases of cardiovascular disease were documented. At the beginning of the study period 13% of participants reported daily egg consumption, and 9% reported never or rarely eating eggs. Analysis of results showed that daily egg consumption was associated with overall lower risk of cardiovascular disease.

Participants who consumed one egg per day had 26% lower risk of haemorrhagic stroke, 28% decreased risk of haemorrhagic stroke death, 18% decreased risk of CVD death, and 12% decreased risk of ischaemic heart disease.

It was noted that due to this being an observational study no firm conclusion can be made about cause and effect, the large sampling size took into account established and potential risk factors for cardiovascular disease. Researcher are confident that their findings contribute to scientific evidence regarding moderate egg consumption and lower cardiac event rates.