But new research out of the University of Sydney finds that even for people with prediabetes and type 2 diabetes (T2D), eggs don’t increase the risk of cardiovascular disease and are a good addition to a healthy diet. The study, published in May 2018 in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, is a continuation of earlier research, published in April 2015 in the same journal. In the first study, participants were asked to maintain their weight while eating a high-egg (12 eggs per week) or low-egg (less than two eggs per week) diet. After three months, researchers found no difference in cardiovascular risk markers. In this follow-up study, the same participants were asked to go on a weight loss diet — a diet that emphasized replacing saturated fats (such as butter) with monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats (such as avocado and olive oil) — for three months while continuing their high or low egg consumption. Participants were then followed for an additional six months. At all stages of the study, neither group showed unfavorable changes in cardiovascular disease risk factors and achieved equivalent weight loss, regardless of their level of egg consumption. “Despite differing advice around safe levels of egg consumption for people with prediabetes and type 2 diabetes, our research indicates people do not need to hold back from eating eggs if this is part of a healthy diet,” Nicholas Fuller, MD, research program leader within the Charles Perkins Centre at the University of Sydney in Australia, and lead author of the study, said in a press release. “A lot of this epidemiological research showing that high egg consumption (six or more eggs per week) is detrimental to a person’s health was conducted at a time when we were told to avoid eggs,” says Dr. Fuller. “People who were eating a high egg diet during that time were also likely to have other poor eating habits, such as one high in saturated fat and low in whole-grain carbohydrates.” RELATED: Google Develops Artificial Intelligence to Assess Heart Health
Debunking the Myths Around Eggs
“We went through this phase in the ’80s and early ’90s where we decided eggs were a bad thing because we thought they caused high cholesterol,” says Fatima Cody Stanford, MD, a physician who specializes in obesity and nutrition at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, who was not involved with this research. “We made that assumption because an egg in and of itself has about seventy percent of the recommended amount of cholesterol that you should consume in a day. At the time, it seemed to make sense to eliminate eggs from the diet.” According to Kelly Kennedy, RD, a nutritionist for Everyday Health, more recent research has shown that it’s not that simple. “The cholesterol that we eat in food, such as the cholesterol in egg yolks, doesn’t necessarily translate into cholesterol in our blood levels,” she says. It may be exasperating to hear about new nutritional research that seems to contradict previous guidelines, but according to Kennedy, that’s part of the nutrition science landscape, and something we should get used to. “Much of the science on food and nutrition is relatively new,” says Kennedy. “What we are learning about our eating habits and how that affects different health outcomes continues to evolve, and people can get frustrated by that." On a positive note, Kennedy notes that this particular research is good news for egg lovers. “Although eggs do contain saturated fat, which could increase cholesterol levels, one of the most important things to consider is the rest of a person’s diet. If eggs are part of a generally healthy diet that is low in saturated fat and high in fiber, that’s okay,” she says, adding that moderation is the key.
