(Kathleen Doheny/ WebMD) — Could an egg a day keep heart disease away, despite warnings in the past that the cholesterol was bad for your heart? Chinese researchers suggest it might, after their study following more than 400,000 adults for about 9 years found an egg a day lowered the chance of heart disease and strokes.
“Among Chinese adults, a moderate level of egg consumption, up to less than an egg a day, was significantly associated with lower risk of cardiovascular disease,” the researchers report in the journal Heart.
In the study, eating an egg daily lowered the odds of dying from heart disease by 18% and cut the risk of hemorrhagic stroke by 28%, when compared with those who never, or rarely, ate eggs. This was true even after the researchers took into account other things that could affect risk, such as diet and exercise. Hemorrhagic strokes happen when a blood vessel in the brain bursts.
But U.S. consumers should take the egg news with a grain of salt, says Alice Lichtenstein, DSc, Gershoff professor of nutrition science and policy at the Cardiovascular Nutrition Laboratory at Tufts University in Boston. She was not involved in the study. (…)