An egg a day lowers risk of cardiovascular disease – Study

For decade, there has been a common understanding that eating eggs is unhealthy due to the high cholesterol content it raises.

Experts cautioned against the wide spread popular belief on some websites and magazines that eggs may pose danger to health, its authors claimed that Chinese adults who ate an egg every day had a lower risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD).

Studying half-a-million healthy adults aged 30-79 over almost nine years; researchers concluded that “compared with non-consumers, daily egg consumption was associated with lower risk of CVD.”

The recent research has increasingly gathered evidence showing that eating eggs daily may reduce the risk of heart disease and strokes.

The study further reveals that individuals who usually ate about one egg per day had a 26 per cent lower risk of experiencing hemorrhagic stroke, a 28 per cent lower risk of death due to this type of event, and an 18 per cent lower risk of CVD-related mortality, the Chinese-British research team reported in the journal Heart.

“The present study finds that there is an association between moderate level of egg consumption (up to 1 egg/day) and a lower cardiac event rate,” the study authors explain.

According to the World Health Organization, about 17.7 million people die of CVDs each year, almost a third of all deaths worldwide.

Eighty per cent of CVD deaths are caused by heart attacks and strokes. Smoking, not exercising enough, and eating an unhealthy diet high in salt and low in fresh fruit and vegetables, increase the risk.

However, eggs are rich in dietary cholesterol, long linked to a higher CVD risk, but these days most doctors encourage the eating of eggs as part of healthful nutrients, containing high levels of protein, Vitamins A, D, B, B12 and carotenoids.

ANTHONIA OBOKOH