Eggs go to work on cutting risk of stroke
Hands up anyone who remembers the Government’s health slogan “Go to Work on an Egg”? We all did our best to follow the advice ( five eggs a week) till it was withdrawn for not promoting a balanced diet.
Then eggs fell into disrepute over their cholesterol content. How wrong we were about that.
In the 80s, we became obsessed with cholesterol and trying to lower the amount in the blood. Based on very bad science, it became fashionable to spurn all foods containing cholesterol. It was so illogical.
Cholesterol in food doesn’t equate to high blood cholesterol. We were barking up the wrong tree.
So personally I’ve been eating eggs for years and that’s backed up by research suggesting we really should “go to work on an egg” to slash the chances of stroke and heart disease.
A Chinese study has revealed eating one egg a day reduced the risk of a stroke by more than a quarter compared to those who rarely eat them.
Researchers from Peking University Health Science Center and Oxford University examined the links between egg consumption, strokes and cardiovascular disease and found those who ate an average of five a week were also 12% less likely to suffer from heart disease.
They looked at the dietary habits of more than 400,000 healthy people in China, aged 30 to 79. At the start of the study, around 13% of participants reported eating an egg every day while just over 9% said they rarely or never did. When they were followed up around nine years later, researchers found there had been 83,977 cases of cardiovascular disease and 9,985 deaths, as well as 5,103 major coronary events such as heart attacks.
But those who had eaten an egg a day had a lower risk of cardiovascular disease overall.
They also had a 26% lower risk of stroke, a 28% lower risk of stroke death and an 18% lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease. Big differences. Tim Chico, a professor of cardiovascular medicine at the University of Sheffield, said people should be comforted by the findings. “People who eat eggs can be reassured they do not seem to pose a risk to their heart,” he said.
“But although it is important to reduce our risk of heart disease through diet and lifestyle, it is unrealistic to think eating more eggs is going to make much difference.”