The uncertainty of science: Scientists now say eating eggs reduces your chances of a heart attack
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.
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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.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
When I read stuff like this, I always think of “Sleeper.”
https://youtu.be/1yCeFmn_e2c?feature=shared
The quest for the universal rule book continues. The problem is: there isn’t one.
Just wait until they revise the guideline to say that it is okay to eat eggs, but any two people eating eggs must be at least six feet apart.
There have been several of these received-wisdom dietary reversals. I avoid consumption distress by eating what I want, when I want, with diverse foods in moderation. Problem solved; no food anxiety.
Big egg is behind it, I’m talking ostrich corporation.
Maybe the fact that eggs are unprocessed natural food has something to do with it?
I eat the yolks now, because I’m a rebel and I just don’t care.
My uncle Dave tells me of his father-in-law Ray who found eggs to be a very cheap food for all of his life (reportedly upwards of 6 dz/week) as they watched one of the old reports news falsely stating eggs were bad.
Perhaps subconsciously, or not, after the report Ray called out to his wife to “cook up 3 or 4 eggs for me will ya?”
My uncle replied: “Ray, didn’t you see the report on how those eggs are bad for you?!!”
Ray said: “Dave, I’m 94!”
Eat the foods that God made and not the foods that man made. If it has an ingredient list with more than 1 item, plus maybe salt, then best to avoid it.
I’d add Bacon to my approved foods list. Also bacon grease is a wonderful cooking ingredient.
Gary I am with you.
I read.this and my first thought was ‘Great! Now do bacon”
Who can afford eggs?
Eggs, when eaten, are better for your health.
However, eggs, when purchased, might give you a heart attack.
Probably healthy user bias makes it worse. The people eating eggs were defying “science” so they might’ve smoked, drank alcohol and what-not because eggs were so bad and they dint seem to care.
Here is the actual article for anybody willing to actually read:
https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/17/2/323
Notes.
1. Highest risk of death was for daily egg-eaters.
2. All participants were “community-dwelling adults aged 70 years and over”
3. All-cause mortality decrease for weekly eaters was 15% : larger decrease for cardiovascular likely offset by increased cancer risk.
4. 100% correlational, so good chance other factors than the eggs explain mortality differences.
5. Funded by the NIH. I thought the right-wing hated NIH so its funny to see NIH-supported research being celebrated.
Although those $9 a dozen eggs might get your heart beating a little faster.
Best way to determine if eating a certain diet is good for you – Find OLD people! I mead the 90 and above people who are slim, trim, and active and mentally alert! Ask about their LIFE – what they did – how they ate – how active they were and still are! THERE’s the “SCIENCE”!! My Mom died a week before her 96th Birthday and only because she fell getting out of bed and hit her head on her night stand, causing brain damage. She was very active and mentally alert up until she turned 95! She loved to shop and would push a buggy for hours if you let her! She ate the hottest peppers she could find – considered jalapenoes as “candy”! She ate stuff fried in fat back renderings, ate bacon and eggs, ate most everything that the “science” said was bad for you! Now she ate in moderation and was never fat or even chubby. She was mentally alert even at 95 – much more so that the so called President Biden! I’d trust the EVIDENCE of OLD LIVING PEOPLE over “science” any day! BUT, I couldn’t handle those hot peppers!!
The confounding factors are legion, but my attitude has always been, “an entire chicken can grow out of that thing; how can it possibly be bad for me?”
Yes, chickens are not people; birds are not even mammals. But, we both have blood, bones, skin, and nerves that are very similar. No doubt age is a factor. Young folks probably need a different set of inputs because they’re still growing (like eggs turning into chickens) while older folks are not (so may “overdose” on whatever growing goodness is in eggs). Etc…
I thought the right-wing hated NIH so its funny to see NIH-supported research being celebrated.
At least Jennifer is only speaking for herself. I will venture to speak for the entire right-wing, so I’m no doubt wrong.
The problem is not the idea of NIH or _all_ that NIH does. The problem is that _most_ of what they do is either useless, trivial, or blinkered (see Alzheimer’s and amyloid plaques). It has become a monopoly (which I though the left-wing hated). Worse, it has become a government monopoly that stifles _politically_ unpopular science and glorifies _politically_ popular science. If it were just one funding source among many, no one would care. That’s what politicians and bureaucrats do.
The biggest issue with it, right now, is separating the wheat from the chaff (flies from the cutlets may be more apt, here).
Back to speaking for just myself: Much as with USAID, I’m willing to throw the (metaphorical) babies out with the bathwater just to stop the vast amount of garbage. If something is important, it will get studied – perhaps even with government grants – via a different mechanism. Might this take a while and might myriads suffer because of that? Yes. On the flip side, billions of dollars have been spent on useless research that benefits almost no one or is heading down rabbit holes. See again Alzheimer’s. Under the guise of looking for a cure, literal billions have been spent and NO ONE has been helped. Those people are still waiting, suffering, and dying.
In my cost/benefit analysis, NIH fails as an organization. Are there people within it doing good, even vital, work? Probably. Those people are unlikely to have difficulty finding a new employer. I’ll happily fund food stamps for the rest just to stop them from skewing ALL health research.
Nobody actually knows anything real.
That’s why we spend so much time speculating.
“Do you love me?”
“Am I going to die?”
Do I look fat in this dress?”
“Are there really ten/eleven String dimensions”
“Is Gravity a Force or a Space-Time distortion?
“Does my spouse actually love me?
Nobody.
Really.
Maybe.