Are eggs a healthy breakfast food? – Deseret News

A new study adds to the growing notion that advice to limit egg consumption to avoid increasing bad cholesterol and risk of heart disease was based on scrambled data.

What raises bad LDL cholesterol is actually the types of food we tend to eat alongside our eggs, such as bacon and sausage, according to a study from the University of South Australia that finds eggs have been unfairly beaten up for decades.

Advice has long been to limit egg consumption — especially the cholesterol-containing yolks — to avoid developing cardiovascular disease, which is the leading cause of death globally, killing about 18 million each year.

The new study’s findings are published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

“In a world-first study, researchers showed that eating two eggs a day, as part of a low saturated fat diet, can even help reduce LDL cholesterol, challenging outdated guidelines and offering heart-healthy news for breakfast lovers everywhere,” per a news release on Science Daily.

The researchers “have shown definitively that it’s not dietary cholesterol in eggs but the saturated fat in our diets that’s the real heart health concern,” according to the study.

In fact, the researchers concluded that eating two eggs a day in a high cholesterol but low saturated fat diet seems to reduce LDL levels and, consequently, the risk of heart disease. The study advocates eating more, not fewer eggs than have been recommended in recent years.

Jon Buckley, the lead researcher and a professor at the university, said the research team was able to unscramble the effects of cholesterol and saturated fat, “finding that high dietary cholesterol from eggs, when eaten as part of a low saturated fat diet, does not raise bad cholesterol levels.”

Saturated fat, he said, drives elevation of bad cholesterol.

This is not the first study to suggest that the long-held view that eggs are potentially harmful exaggerated the risk. Dr. Howard LeWine, editor of Harvard Men’s Health Watch, in 2022 disputed advice to eat no more than one or two whole eggs a week.

“More recent research found that dietary cholesterol had little influence on blood levels of total and ‘bad’ LDL cholesterol,” he wrote in a Harvard newsletter. “Instead, it is dietary saturated fats that raise these blood levels. The reason? Most of the cholesterol in your body does not come from your diet but is made by your liver. And saturated fat in the diet can cause your liver to make lots of cholesterol.”

Conflicting findings

Healthline reports that the risk from eating eggs likely varies some depending on the person and notes that there are conflicting studies, which suggests more research is needed on the topic.

“For a healthy adult with normal cholesterol levels and no significant underlying heart disease risk factors, some research suggests that 1–2 eggs per day can be safe. It may even be healthy and benefit your heart health,” the article said.

As for trying to limit potential risks by skipping the yolk and only eating egg whites, Healthline says that misses some of the goodness contained in the yolk: iron, vitamin D and carotenoids, among others. “These bioactive nutrients are thought to be responsible for many of the health-promoting qualities of eggs, like reduced inflammation, increased HDL cholesterol levels, and improved metabolic health.”