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Dr. James J. (Jay) Kenney, PhD, RD, FACN
 Director of Nutrition Research and Educator at the Pritikin Longevity Center & Spa
Dr. Kenney, highly acclaimed nutrition researcher, author, and educator, offers expert advice on hot health topics such as Diet Wars (high protein vs. high-carb), Adolescent Obesity, Trans Fats, Diabetes, Heart Disease, Hypertension, Cancer, Women's Health, and more.
View all articles by Dr. James Kenney...
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That’s certainly what the egg industry’s promotion arm, the American Egg Board, would have you believe. In national ad campaigns and on its website, www.aeb.org, eggs are touted as "nature’s miracle food" and have a "high nutrient density and wide range of vitamins and minerals."
But no matter how you crack, scramble, boil, or poach them, egg yolks are loaded with cholesterol – 215 milligrams per egg. That’s more than double the Pritikin Program’s upper limit recommendation of 100mg of dietary cholesterol for the entire day. Ideally, and particularly for individuals with heart disease and/or high LDL (bad) cholesterol, consumption of dietary cholesterol should average no more than about 35mg per day.
"Even the National Cholesterol Education Program and American Heart Association have made it clear that the more cholesterol you consume, the higher your LDL cholesterol rises," points out Dr. Jay Kenney, Nutrition Research Specialist at the Pritikin Longevity Center. And the higher your LDL rises, the more artery clogging plaque you accumulate.
Egg yolks also contain some saturated fat, so once again, the more you eat, the higher your LDL cholesterol soars.
And LDL can rise quickly – and dramatically. In a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. William Connor and fellow researchers at Oregon Health Sciences University added egg yolks to the low-fat, high-fiber diet of the Tarahumara Indians of rural Mexico. In just five weeks, their average LDL levels shot up 39%.*
Another study by Harvard researchers observed about a 12% increase in serum LDL-cholesterol levels when strict vegetarians added just one egg per day to their diet for a few weeks.**
"The only miracle about eggs is that some people can in fact eat a lot of them and still live to a ripe old age – just like some smokers can. But the odds are against it. For most people, the reality is the more egg yolks you eat and tobacco smoke you inhale, the greater your risk of cardiovascular disease," states Dr. Kenney.
"Any claims by the egg industry that eggs don’t promote cardiovascular disease are as believable as claims by the tobacco industry that smoking doesn’t promote lung cancer, emphysema, and cardiovascular disease. Obviously, there’s a conflict of interest that makes both industries unreliable sources regarding their products’ adverse health effects."
* New England Journal of Medicine, 1991; 325: 1704.
** Sacks FM, Miller L,Suthrland, M, et al. Ingestion of egg raises plasma low density lipoproteins in free-living subjects. Lancet, 1984, pages 647-9.
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