Egg consumption and cardiovascular risk

Egg consumption and cardiovascular risk (CV risk)

Eggs:

• are one of the richest sources of dietary cholesterol, but they also contain a wide variety of essential nutrients and bioactive compounds, such as high-quality protein, fat-soluble and B vitamins, phospholipids, and choline
• an inverse association between egg consumption and CVD risk was published, whereas more (>10 eggs per week) and less (<1 per week) egg intake was found to be harmful to cardiovascular health (1)
  • findings identified that both low and high consumption were associated with increased risk of incident CVD and all-cause mortality, highlighting that moderate egg consumption of 3-<6/week should be recommended for CVD prevention in China
• a study aimed to simultaneously explore the associations of self-reported egg consumption with plasma metabolic markers and these markers with the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) (2)
  • egg consumption was associated with 24 out of 225 markers, including positive associations for apolipoprotein A1, acetate, mean HDL diameter, and lipid profiles of very large and large HDL, and inverse associations for total cholesterol and cholesterol esters in small VLDL
    • among these 24 markers, 14 were associated with CVD risk
    • in general, the associations of egg consumption with metabolic markers and of these markers with CVD risk showed opposite patterns
    • the study authors concluded:
      • in the Chinese population, egg consumption is associated with several metabolic markers, which may partially explain the protective effect of moderate egg consumption on CVD

Reference:

• Xia X, Liu F, Yang X, Li J, Chen J, Liu X, Cao J, Shen C, Yu L, Zhao Y, Wu X, Zhao L, Li Y, Huang J, Lu X, Gu D. Associations of egg consumption with incident cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality. Sci China Life Sci. 2020 Sep;63(9):1317-1327. doi: 10.1007/s11427-020-1656-8. Epub 2020 Mar 10. PMID: 32170624
• Pan L, Chen L, Lv J, Pang Y, Guo Y, Pei P, Du H, Yang L, Millwood IY, Walters RG, Chen Y, Gong W, Chen J, Yu C, Chen Z, Li L; China Kadoorie Biobank Collaborative Group. Association of egg consumption, metabolic markers, and risk of cardiovascular diseases: A nested case-control study. Elife. 2022 May 24;11:e72909. doi: 10.7554/eLife.72909. PMID: 35607895; PMCID: PMC9129873