I wish they’d make up their minds: For decades scientists — and the U.S. government — claimed with absolute certainty that eating eggs increased your risk of a heart attack because of the egg’s cholesterol content.
Now they say “Never mind.”
The researchers analyzed data from 8,756 Australian and American adults aged 70-plus who participated in the ASPirin in Reducing Events in the Elderly (ASPREE) study and one of its sub-studies, the ASPREE Longitudinal Study of Older Persons (ALSOP) study. As part of the latter study, participants self-reported their total egg intake, which was categorized as never/infrequently (never or one-to-two times a month), weekly (one-to-six times a week), and daily (daily or several times a day). The association between egg intake and all-cause and cause-specific mortality – in this case, cardiovascular disease and cancer – was assessed after adjusting for sociodemographic, health-related and clinical factors, and overall diet quality. The follow-up period was close to six years.
Participants who fell into the weekly category of egg consumption, that is, they consumed one to six eggs per week, had a 29% lower risk of dying from cardiovascular disease and a 17% lower risk of dying from any cause compared to those participants who ate eggs never or infrequently. There was no statistically significant association between egg consumption and deaths due to cancer.
The study found that eating eggs with a high quality diet reduced the risk of heart disease even more. It also found that eating eggs has the same exact benefit even for those who already had high levels of cholesterol.
In other words, our lovely government and the American Heart Association had been handing out guidelines for decades based on nothing more than very uncertain science, and doing it with an air of arrogant certainty that should make everyone want to vomit.
I should note that the results above are uncertain as well. It is based merely on a correlation of eating eggs and lower heart disease, and we must remind ourselves that correlation does not prove causation. The study says nothing about how eating eggs might lower your risk of heart disease, and the correlation might very well be unrelated entirely.
