Are eggs bad for you? Place of the two scientists

But eggs are also high in protein and other important nutrients, leading some scientists to argue that the benefits of egg consumption outweigh the risks.

The American Heart Association and the US Department of Agriculture have both increased their estimates of the amount of eggs that can be safely consumed each day, suggesting that warnings about eggs have been exaggerated.

And yet, for many scientists, the concerns about cholesterol and fat in our diet are still valid.

So, about these eggs: Sunny side? Or thumbs down?

William C. Roberts, executive director of the Baylor Scott & White Heart and Vascular Institute and editor of the American Journal of Cardiology, argues that eating eggs is not safe. Maria Luz Fernandez, a professor in the Department of Nutritional Sciences at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, defends the benefits of eating eggs.

YES: the eggs are tasty, but they are not worth the risk of a heart attack

By William C. Roberts

Atherosclerosis, which includes blockages and hardening of the arteries, is caused by cholesterol and, the higher the blood cholesterol level, the higher the risk of heart attack.

The human food that has the highest concentration of cholesterol is the egg.

There are at least four factors that support the idea that cholesterol causes atherosclerosis: 1) Atherosclerosis is easy to produce experimentally. If a high cholesterol diet is administered to herbivores (rabbits, monkeys), the plaque develops rapidly in the arteries of animals; 2) cholesterol is present in arterial plaques; 3) Companies with high blood cholesterol levels have significantly more atherosclerosis than companies with low blood cholesterol levels; and 4) lowering blood cholesterol and, more specifically, LDL cholesterol, or low density lipoprotein, lowers the frequency of atherosclerotic events.

The typical large egg weighs about 60 grams (2 ounces) and contains 215 to 275 milligrams of cholesterol. The American Heart Association recently withdrew its recommendation to limit dietary cholesterol intake to less than 300 mg in healthy adults and to less than 200 mg daily in adults with "high risk" of atherosclerosis, because many studies have little effect on LDL cholesterol levels in the blood in adults who do not eat more than one egg a day.

But is this result indicative of the harmless effect of dietary cholesterol on our arteries? Or does it reflect the difficulty of conducting studies focused on a single food product? Many studies last only several weeks and some very long-term studies (over 20 years) usually do not take into account changes in dietary cholesterol intake or cholesterol consumption in processed foods, cakes or cookies. or vinaigrettes. Many studies relied on the self-reporting of eggs consumed.

Maria Luz Fernandez and her colleagues at the University of Connecticut have conducted several studies, each involving 50 adults or children in good health or poor health, determining the effect of eating one, two or three eggs a day for one to three months (usually four to six). weeks). They found that although LDL cholesterol may increase, HDL cholesterol, the "good" cholesterol, also does so, so the ratio between the two is usually unchanged. And while it is true that everyone absorbs dietary cholesterol at different rates, few of us know if we are superabsorbents or poor absorbers. Lifelong recommendations based on studies conducted on about fifty patients and for a maximum of three months seem a little risky. In addition, some of these studies were funded by the Egg Nutrition Center, a defense group of the egg industry.

Adults rarely consume an egg by itself. Eggs often come with bacon or sausages, buttered toast, french fries and are often cooked in butter or other high-fat oils. They are sometimes covered with ketchup whose sugar content is greater than that of ice cream. Saturated fats (mainly from animal muscles, cheese, milk and butter, or oils) increase our blood cholesterol levels the most. Thus, the business that the eggs retain may be more harmful to our health than the eggs themselves.

Eggs have positive characteristics. They are high in protein and low in fat, only a third of which is saturated. They are relatively low in calories (about 75), rich in minerals and vitamins. Nevertheless, in my opinion, eggs should not be consumed daily. The risk is not worth the pleasure.

I recommend limiting eggs on special occasions and taking a statin – a miracle drug used in the treatment of atherosclerosis to fight infectious diseases – with the egg!

Dr. Roberts is Executive Director of the Baylor Scott & White Institute of Cardiology and Vascular Baylor University Medical Center; Dean of the A. Webb Roberts Center for Continuing Medical Education of the Baylor Scott & White Health System; Texas Professor A & M College of Medicine, Dallas Campus; and editor of the American Journal of Cardiology and Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings. Send him an email to [email protected].

NO: There is no direct link between diet and cholesterol

By Maria Luz Fernandez

It's time to end the mistake that eggs are harmful to you.

Many researches have clearly shown that there is no correlation between egg consumption and the increased risk of heart disease. The United States Department of Agriculture agrees, and as a result, its latest food guidelines, published in January 2016, no longer recommend an upper limit for cholesterol in its diet.

Two important points: First, there is no direct link between cholesterol levels in the blood and the consumption of foods containing cholesterol. The cholesterol we eat is not necessarily found in our blood because our digestive system eliminates most of it. The average person absorbs only 20 to 60% of their cholesterol level in the blood, and some absorb only 5% of it.

Second, our body naturally produces and regulates cholesterol levels, so even vegans who consume no cholesterol will still have cholesterol in their blood. But even if a person consumes large amounts of cholesterol, the body has a mechanism to compensate by asking the cells to lower their cholesterol, maintaining the cholesterol concentration in their blood.

In some cases, egg consumption can increase high density lipoprotein, or HDL, the "good" cholesterol, so named because HDL removes cholesterol from the arteries and sends it back to the liver for it to be eliminated from the body. Sometimes, eggs raise HDL cholesterol levels without increasing low-density lipoprotein or LDL levels, which increases the relationship between good cholesterol and bad cholesterol. In other cases, eating eggs raised LDL levels, but increased HDL levels at the same time, thus maintaining the ratio.

In my laboratory, I performed 12 dietary interventions involving the consumption of two to three eggs per day for extended periods in children, young men and women, the elderly, obese, people with the syndrome In all of these studies, the results consistently showed that eggs do not increase the biomarkers of heart disease, including the relationship between bad cholesterol and good.

Some studies have suggested that eggs would produce heart disease in herbivores. But animals participating in these tests (rabbits and monkeys) may receive the equivalent of 3,000 mg or more of dietary cholesterol per day, while an egg usually contains about 200 mg of cholesterol. It has also been observed that companies with high cholesterol levels have a much higher risk of heart disease than companies with low blood cholesterol levels. But diets in high-risk countries tend to be high in saturated fat, known to increase LDL cholesterol.

Some critics have rightly noted that my studies have been funded by the Egg Nutrition Center, an organization that supports the egg industry. The center never analyze my data. My group and I do all the statistics, analyzes and data interpretations. Moreover, despite claims that it is impossible to isolate the effects of single foods in human studies, many clinical interventions have successfully compared the effects of egg consumption with the effects of consumption of another food. An epidemiological analysis showed that there was no difference in risk between people who did not eat eggs and those who ate more than seven eggs a week.

The health benefits of eggs are as follows: Whole eggs contain vitamin D, which plays a role in bone health and protects against diabetes and heart disease. Egg proteins help maintain muscle strength at any age and decrease muscle loss in the elderly. It has also been reported that it prevents malnutrition in low income families. Eggs contain lutein and zeaxanthin, which help prevent age-related macular degeneration, the leading cause of blindness in the elderly.

Eggs are also a very good source of choline, an essential nutrient that protects against cognitive disorders and fatty liver. As a rule, Americans do not consume the required daily choline intake. Egg consumption would alleviate this problem.

Dr. Fernandez, who has a PhD, is a professor in the Department of Nutritional Sciences at the University of Connecticut in Storrs. She can be reached at [email protected].