‘An egg a day may keep doctor away’

Lowers risk of cardiovascular disease

Animal Husbandry department and Forest officials inspect a well to catch bats at Changaroth in Kozhikode in the Indian state of Kerala on May 21. (AFP)

PARIS, May 22, (Agencies): For decades, experts warned that eating eggs raises levels of unhealthy cholesterol. But a study Tuesday said an egg a day may actually reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke.

While outside experts cautioned against reading too much into the study, 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.”

Risk of haemorrhagic stroke was 26 percent lower among egg-eaters, the Chinese-British research team reported in the journal Heart.

And daily egg consumption was associated with an 18-percent lower risk of death from CVD, and a 28-percent lower risk for death from haemorrhagic stroke.

CVD, a group of disorders of the heart and blood vessels, is the leading cause of death and disability worldwide, including in China.

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

Eighty percent 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. Eggs are rich in dietary cholesterol, long linked to a higher CVD risk, but also contain crucial protein and vitamins.

In the study group, 13 percent reported daily egg consumption, while nine percent said they never or hardly ever ate them.

By the end of the study period, almost 84,000 cases of CVD and 10,000 CVD deaths were recorded, and compared among the different egg-intake groups.

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

But experts not involved in the study, said the results fail to prove that eating eggs actively lowers CVD risk.

“An important limitation of this present study is that the people who consumed eggs regularly were much more affluent than those who avoided them,” University College of London nutrition specialist Tom Sanders said.

“Indeed, rates of stroke have been falling in Japan, Australia, North America and Europe for several decades for reasons that remain uncertain but may be related to increasing affluence,” he said via the Science Media Centre in London.

According to cardiology expert Gavin Sandercock of the University of Essex: “to say that eating eggs is good (or bad) for you based on a study like this would be foolish as diet is much more complicated than picking on one foodstuff like eggs.”

A second paper published in Heart found that people who commute to work by walking or cycling had a risk of heart disease and stroke 11 percent lower than those who take the car.

Their risk of dying from CVD diseases was almost a third lower, found the seven-year study of more than 350,000 people in Britain.

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Actresses Brigitte Bardot and Sophie Marceau are leading campaigns for mandatory cameras in French slaughterhouses and a ban on the sale of eggs from caged hens as France’s parliament prepares to debate a food industry bill Tuesday.

Thirteen animal rights associations have called on lawmakers to add the slaughterhouse and cage regulations to the legislation. In an open letter, they argued that both measures were campaign promises of French President Emmanuel Macron.

The Bardot Foundation released a video in which the former French film star, a longtime animal rights activist, expresses her “revolt at the way animals are slaughtered” and notes she hasn’t eaten meat for 40 years.

In a separate video released Monday, former James Bond girl Sophie Marceau endorses the ban on eggs from caged hens. The video includes footage shot by animal rights activists that shows hens crammed into tiny cages with the carcasses of dead birds.

The government’s bill strengthens the penalties for animal abuse. It would double the possible sentence to one year in prison and a fine of 15,000 euros ($17,600.)

In recent years, a string of undercover videos has revealed shocking slaughterhouse conditions in the country — showing various abuses of pigs, cows, sheep and hens.

Under former president Francois Hollande, the lower house of parliament approved a bill ordering cameras in slaughterhouses that would have been a first in Europe. The law-making process was abandoned when Macron took office last year.

Legislation making video cameras mandatory in slaughterhouses in England, but not the rest of the United Kingdom, took effect this month.