Are eggs bad for your heart? Study sheds light - Video

Eggs are a common and relatively inexpensive source of protein and dietary cholesterol. Whether you like your eggs sunny-side up, hard-boiled or scrambled, many hesitate to eat them amid concerns that eggs may raise cholesterol levels and be bad for heart health.

“We know that cardiovascular disease is, to some extent, mediated through risk factors like high blood pressure, high cholesterol and increased BMI and diabetes. Dietary patterns and habits can have a notable influence on these and there’s been a lot of conflicting information about whether or not eggs are safe to eat, especially for people who have or are at risk for heart disease. This is a small study, but it gives us reassurance that eating eggs is OK with regard to lipid effects over four months, even among a more high-risk population,” said Nina Nouhravesh, MD, a research fellow at the Duke Clinical Research Institute in Durham, North Carolina, and the study’s lead author.

A total of 140 patients with or at high risk for cardiovascular disease were enrolled in the PROSPERITY trial, which aimed to assess the effects of eating 12 or more eggs a week versus a non-egg diet (consuming less than two eggs a week) on HDL- and LDL-cholesterol, as well as other key markers of cardiovascular health over a four-month study period. Secondary endpoints included lipid, cardiometabolic and inflammatory biomarkers and levels of vitamins and minerals. Patients had in-person clinic visits at the start of the study and visits at one and four months to take vital signs and have bloodwork done.

Results showed a -0.64 mg/dL and a -3.14 mg/dL reduction in HDL-cholesterol (“good” cholesterol) and LDL cholesterol (“bad” cholesterol), respectively, in the egg group. While these differences weren’t statistically significant, the differences suggested that eating 12 eggs each week had no adverse effect on blood cholesterol. In terms of secondary endpoints, researchers observed a numerical reduction in total cholesterol, LDL particle number, another lipid biomarker, high-sensitivity troponin (a marker of heart damage), and insulin resistance scores in the fortified egg group, while vitamin B increased.

“While this is a neutral study, we did not observe adverse effects on biomarkers of cardiovascular health and there were signals of potential benefits of eating eggs that warrant further investigation in larger studies as they are more hypothesis generating here,” said Nouhravesh, explaining that subgroup analyses revealed numerical increases in HDL cholesterol and reductions in LDL cholesterol in patients 65 years or older and those with diabetes in the 12-egg group compared with those eating fewer than two eggs.

Reference: Prospective Evaluation of Fortified Eggs Related to Improvement in the Biomarker Profile for Your Health: Primary Results from the PROSPERITY Trial, American College of Cardiology's Annual Scientific Session