Eggs have long had a bad rap when it comes to health. The criticism is that they're nothing more than tiny trojan horses, importing their high levels of artery-clogging cholesterol into your body.
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But now University of Sydney researchers have found eating large numbers of eggs has no such effect, even among people who are already at high risk of heart disease.
Nick Fuller, from the Boden Institute at Sydney University, found people with diabetes who ate two eggs a day for six days a week showed no increase at all in their cholesterol levels over a three month period.
"Previously there have been epidemiological studies, that is, studies that look at a population of people over time... which suggest detrimental effects on cardiovascular disease or mortality in some subgroups of people, for example those with type 2 diabetes," Fuller said.
The question was whether or not those people were the canary in the coal mine, suffering negative effects from eggs because they were already vulnerable to cholesterol problems.
His study divided 140 people into two groups, with half eating two eggs a day, six days a week, and the other half eating less than two eggs a week. All participants also replaced 'bad' saturated fats like butter with 'good' unsaturated fats like avocado.
"In the end both groups maintained their weight, but interestingly both groups showed the same improvements over the three months, and there was no difference in cardiovascular risk factors like bad cholesterol," Dr Fuller said. "The high egg group also reported feeling fuller, so greater satiety after breakfast. However, that will have to be confirmed in another study".
The research, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, also found a trend towards improvements in the level of 'good' HDL cholesterol measured in the blood of the high-egg consumption group, although the improvement was not large enough to be considered statistically significant and would also need to be looked at in a larger study.
Dr Fuller said the study was provided with eggs and some financial support from the egg industry, but it played no role in designing the study or analysing the data.
People interested in participating in clinical trails can contact the Boden Institute on clinicaltrials.boden@sydney.edu.au or 02 8627 0101.
