In news that may break the heart of many people across Britain who
love nothing more than a good old fashioned fry-up to kick-off their
day, it is unfortunately our duty to report that scientists are claiming
that the egg yolks are ‘almost as bad as smoking’ in regards to the
negative effects they can have on health. The debate about how good eggs
are for you has been active for a number of years and no doubt this new
study to emerge will add fuel to the fire.
The egg is a staple of many Brits’ morning breakfast, with fry-ups or
‘egg and soldiers’ being most common dishes. The bearer of bad news is
Dr David Spence from the University of Western Ontario, London, Canada.
Dr Spence claims that eating egg yolks for a sustained time period can
speed up the onset of atherosclerosis. This is where cholesterol and fat
begin to build up in the artery walls and then result in the gradual
creation hard structures called plaques. The damaged narrow arteries can
then restrict blood flow causing organs to stop functioning correctly,
or there is a risk of blood clot. When the blood supply to the heart is
restricted this could lead to a possible heart attack, or a stroke may
be triggered when the brain’s blood supply has been affected.
Dr Spence conducted an analysis of 1,231 participants in total from
London Health Sciences Centre’s University Hospital clinics in Ontario.
For a fair result, he looked at a mixture of both men and women. The
patients had an overall average age of 61.5 and each patient completed a
questionnaire that quizzed them about their lifestyle and medicines
taken. Dr Spence wanted to know each patient’s pack-years of smoking
(number of packs per day of cigarettes times the number of years), and
the number of egg yolks roughly eaten per week times the number of years
consumed (egg yolk-years).
An ultrasound machine was utilised to assess the total plaque area
levels of each person. After thorough analysis it was discovered that
carotid plaque area rose linearly with age after 40, but increased
exponentially after several years of frequent smoking and egg yolk
consumption. It was also observed that the people who typically ate at
least three egg yolks per week had notably more plaque area than those
who restricted themselves to consuming just two a week.
Dr Spence warned, “The mantra ‘eggs can be part of a healthy diet for
healthy people’ has confused the issue. It has been known for a long
time that a high cholesterol intake increases the risk of cardiovascular
events, and egg yolks have very high cholesterol content. In diabetics,
an egg a day increases coronary risk by two to five-fold.”
He continued to stress that regular egg consumption can actually be
two-thirds as dangerous as smoking in terms of plaque build-up. In
addition, Dr Spence revealed that a typical jumbo sized egg can contain a
whopping 237 milligrams of cholesterol, adding, “It’s more than the
cholesterol in a Hardee’s monster thick burger which is two-thirds of a
pound of beef, three slices of cheese and four slices of bacon.”
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