An EGGcellent source of nutrients

There has been an ongoing debate about the healthiness of eggs. Some people say eggs are a great source of protein, eat as much as you want! Other people say eggs are super high in cholesterol; you'll get cardiovascular disease if you eat them! So, who are you supposed to listen to? Should we eat eggs? Should we not eat eggs? Are they healthy? Are they going to clog up your arteries? How are we supposed to live with such incongruencies, and more importantly what am I supposed to eat for breakfast if I can't have eggs?? Well, I'm here to tell you that you should stop listening to those die hard bodybuilders and health nuts telling you to stop eating eggs.

Eggs are highly nutritious and contain a lot of vitamins, minerals, proteins, and fats that are essential for your body (Kuang et al., 2018).  In fact, eggs are second only to breast milk in sources of good protein (Kuang et al., 2018). So if you are no longer an infant getting nutrients from breast milk, you might want to increase your consumption of eggs. Furthermore, contrary to archaic theories, eggs do not actually increase the risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD) in healthy people and may actually decrease their risk (Kuang et al., 2018). So, why does it do that? Yes, it is true that egg yolks contain a high amount of cholesterol and LDL, which are bad for your arteries. Sounds bad right? It actually isn't so bad because while consuming eggs does increase serum levels of LDL it also increases serum levels of HDL too (Kuang et al., 2018). Therefore, the LDL/HDL ratio is unchanged (Kuang et al., 2018). This means there is no increased risk of CVD in healthy patients because high levels of LDL compared to HDL are more important in causing CVD and not the LDL levels alone (Kuang et al., 2018). 

So we aren't increasing our risk by eating eggs which is great, but even better we can actually decrease risk of CVD by eating eggs. Eggs contain important proteins and fatty acid that are protective against CVD. Some proteins found in eggs even have antioxidant properties (Kuang et al., 2018). Specifically, these proteins contain phosvitin, ovalbumin, and ovotransferin. These antioxidants prevent lipid oxidation by scavenging free radicals or binding to metals (Kuang et al., 2018). Therefore, the antioxidant functions of eggs might prevent harmful deterioration of tissues in the body possibly preventing CVD (Kuang et al., 2018). Furthermore, eggs contain the protein ovomucin which decreases serum cholesterol and also decreases cholesterol absorption (Kuang et al., 2018). Therefore, instead of keeping the cholesterol, your body excretes it. Eggs also contain the phospholipids phosphatidylcholine (PC) and sphingomyelin (SM), which is great because PC and SM also inhibit cholesterol absorption (Kuang et al., 2018).

Due to all the great qualities about eggs, your risk for CVD won't increase by eating eggs (Kuang et al., 2018). However, studies show that's really only true for your average generally healthy person (Kuang et al., 2018). If you're at a high risk of CVD or have diabetes, you probably should not eat eggs. For a diabetic person, eating eggs can increase your risk of CVD up to five fold (Kuang et al., 2018). Some studies have also shown that egg consumption may increase risk of gestational diabetes and insulin resistance (Kuang et al., 2018). Because of these results, it is possible that the increased risk of CVD from egg consumption may be influenced by diabetes (Kuang et al., 2018). However, eggs are great and don't increase your risk for CVD as long as you are generally healthy (Kuang et al., 2018). So do your heart a favor and go eat some eggs as long as you aren't diabetic and don't have increased risk for CVD. 

Kuang, H., Yang, F., Zhang, Y., Wang, T., & Chen, G. (2018). The Impact of Egg Nutrient Composition and Its Consumption on Cholesterol Homeostasis. Cholesterol, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1155/2018/6303810