People who eat an egg a day could significantly reduce their risk of cardiovascular disease compared to people who do not, suggests a study carried out by researchers from China and the United Kingdom and collected by the journal Heart.
Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death and disability worldwide, including China, primarily due to ischemic heart disease and stroke (including hemorrhagic and ischemic strokes).
Unlike ischemic heart disease, which is the leading cause of premature death in most Western countries, stroke is the most common cause in China, followed by heart disease.
Eggs are an important source of cholesterol in the diet, but they also contain high-quality protein, many vitamins, and bioactive components such as phospholipids and carotenoids.
Previous studies looking at associations between egg consumption and health impact have been inconsistent, with most of them finding negligible relationships between egg consumption and coronary heart disease or stroke.
Therefore, the experts, led by Liming Li and Canqing Yu from the School of Public Health of the Center for Health Sciences of Peking University, set out to examine the associations between egg consumption and cardiovascular diseases, ischemic heart disease, major coronary events, hemorrhagic stroke, and ischemic stroke.
They used data from the China Kadoorie Biobank study, an ongoing prospective study of around half a million adults ages 30 to 79 from 10 different geographic areas in the eastern country. Participants were recruited between 2004-2008 and asked about the frequency of egg consumption. They were followed to determine their morbidity and mortality.
Specifically, the researchers focused on 416,213 participants who did not have cancer, cardiovascular disease, or diabetes.
Of this group, with a mean follow-up of 8.9 years, a total of 83,977 cases of cardiovascular disease and 9,985 deaths from cardiovascular disease were documented, as well as 5,103 major coronary events.
At the beginning of the study period, 13.1% of the participants stated that they consumed eggs daily (usual amount of 0.76 eggs / day) and 9.1% reported consuming them never or very little (usual amount 0.29 eggs / day) of eggs.
Analysis of the results showed that, compared to people who did not consume eggs, daily egg consumption was associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular disease overall.
In particular, daily egg consumers (up to one egg / day) had a 26% lower risk of hemorrhagic stroke, a 28% lower risk of death from hemorrhagic stroke, and an 18% lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease.
In addition, there was a 12% reduction in the risk of ischemic heart disease seen in people who ate eggs daily (estimated 5.32 eggs / week), compared to people who ate “never or rarely” (2.03 eggs / week).
Although this is an observational study, the authors state that their research has a considerable sample size and that it took into account established and potential risk factors for cardiovascular disease.
“The present study finds that there is an association between moderate level of egg consumption (up to 1 egg / day) and a lower rate of cardiac events,” the authors conclude.
Reference: Associations of egg consumption with cardiovascular disease in a cohort study of 0.5 million Chinese adults, Heart, heart.bmj.com/lookup/doi/10.11… heartjnl-2017-312651
