Research on the beneficial or detrimental effects of eggs is often conflicting, especially when it comes to cholesterol and the heart. One of the latest published papers tips the balance on the positive side, indicating that moderate consumption of this food could increase the amount of heart-healthy metabolites in the blood and therefore have a protective impact on heart health, and reduce the risk of developing cardiovascular diseases.
Eggs are a rich source of dietary cholesterol, but they also contain a variety of essential nutrients. In 2018, a study published in the journal Heart, involving almost half a million adults in China, concluded that those who ate eggs daily had a substantially lower risk of heart disease and stroke. Now, to better understand this relationship, the authors of this new work have focused on determining how the consumption of eggs affects markers of cardiovascular health in the blood.
The new study, published in the journal eLife and carried out by members of Peking University (China), has found the consumption of one egg a day to be beneficial, all of this taking into account markers of cardiovascular health in the blood of a group of 4,778 people from China, of which 3,401 had cardiovascular disease and 1,377 were healthy.
The participants underwent targeted nuclear magnetic resonance testing to measure 225 metabolites – molecules used or produced during metabolism – in plasma samples, of which 24 showed an association with self-reported levels of egg consumption. Additionally, the researchers identified 14 metabolites that were linked to heart disease.
Larger HDL (good) cholesterol molecules
The results obtained showed that those who ate eggs moderately had higher levels of a blood protein called apolipoprotein A1, a building block of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) or good cholesterol. These people also had larger HDL molecules, so it’s thought they could help remove cholesterol from blood vessels, protecting against heart attacks and strokes.
Those who ate an egg a day had larger HDL molecules, which help eliminate cholesterol and protect against heart attacks and strokes
Participants who ate eggs less often were found to have lower levels of beneficial metabolites and higher levels of harmful metabolites in their blood, compared to those who ate eggs more regularly. And it is that in China, the country where the study was carried out, the consumption of one egg a day is recommended, but few of its citizens comply with it.
“Together, our results provide a possible explanation for how eating a moderate amount of eggs may help protect against heart disease. Further studies are needed to verify the causal roles that lipid metabolites play in the association between egg consumption and cardiovascular disease risk,” explains Canqing Yu, one of the study’s investigators.
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