Can eating eggs increase your cholestrol level?

Answer 1

Put to a vote, American Idol style, “dietary demon” would probably come out on top, even though “perfect food” is closer to the truth. Let’s unscramble the egg facts and myths first.

Fact: An egg is a good source of nutrients. For about 15 cents, you get 6 grams of protein, some healthful unsaturated fats, and a smattering of vitamins and minerals. Eggs are also a good source of choline, which has been linked with preserving memory, and lutein and zeaxanthin, which may protect against vision loss.

Fact: Eggs have a lot of cholesterol. The average large egg contains 212 milligrams (mg) of cholesterol. As foods go, that’s quite a bit, rivaled only by single servings of liver, shrimp, and duck meat.

Myth: All of that cholesterol goes straight to your bloodstream and then into your arteries. Not so. In the average person (we’ll come back to this later), only a small amount of the cholesterol in food passes directly into the blood. The liver makes most of the cholesterol that circulates in the bloodstream, largely in response to saturated and trans fats in the diet. Studies dating back to a classic 1950 experiment carried out by pioneering Harvard cardiologist Paul Dudley White and colleagues show that the amount of cholesterol in food generally has a small impact on cholesterol in the blood.

Myth: Eating eggs is bad for your heart. The only large study to look at the impact of egg consumption on heart disease — not on cholesterol levels or other intermediaries — found no connection between the two. In this study of nearly 120,000 initially healthy men and women, those who ate one or more eggs a day were no more likely to have had a heart attack or stroke or to have died of cardiovascular disease over a 14-year study period than those who ate fewer than one egg per week. In people with diabetes, though, egg-a-day eaters were a bit more likely to have developed heart disease than those who ate eggs rarely.

Reputation rehabilitation
Eggs’ reputation as good food took a tumble in the 1960s when researchers first made the connection between heart disease and high cholesterol levels in the blood. The American Heart Association (AHA) and other influential groups set an upper limit for daily cholesterol intake at 300 mg a day (200 mg if you have heart disease) and warned Americans to avoid eating egg yolks. The warning on egg consumption was based on the logical — but incorrect — assumption that cholesterol in food translated directly into cholesterol levels in the blood.

Eggs’ fall from grace may be ending. In 2000, the AHA eased up on eggs. Instead of specifically recommending that we avoid or limit eggs to a certain number per week, the association’s dietary guidelines focused on limiting foods high in saturated fat and keeping cholesterol intake under 300 mg a day. The AHA acknowledges that you can hit this target “even with periodic consumption of eggs and shellfish.”

Eggs and you
Guidelines, unfortunately, aren’t aimed at the individual. That’s a problem when it comes to dietary cholesterol in general and eggs in particular. In many people, cholesterol in food barely affects the amount of cholesterol in the blood. In some, though, it has a substantial effect.

The trouble is there’s no easy way to tell if you are a “responder” or a “nonresponder” to dietary cholesterol. You could, of course, have your cholesterol checked after staying away from eggs for a month or so, then eat an egg a day for a few weeks and have your cholesterol checked again.

That’s overkill for most people with normal levels of total and LDL (bad) cholesterol. If you enjoy eggs, eating one a day should be okay, especially if you compensate in other ways:

Weed out other bad actors. Cutting back even further on saturated and trans fats will have noticeable and positive effects on your cholesterol.

Skip around. If a single fried egg looks too lonely on your plate, or a one-egg vegetable omelet doesn’t fill you up, have two eggs one day and none the next.

Keep tabs. Have your cholesterol checked in two or three months to see if it has changed.

No yolking. All of an egg’s cholesterol is in the yolk. If you are making scrambled eggs, use one whole egg and just the white from another. When baking, you can sometimes substitute two egg whites for one egg. Most grocery stores carry pourable egg whites or yolk-free egg substitutes.

Do you need eggs in your diet? Not at all — you can get along just fine without them. But they are an excellent source of complete protein, have other healthful nutrients, are easy to fix and easy to chew, and don’t cost much.

Answer 2

Well, they really had a bad rep there for a while. It is now know that the egg is no longer the health menace it was once thought to be. Granted, excessive consumption of eggs will increase the good and bad types of cholesterol levels in the same manner that any excessive intake would. The body produces it's own cholesterol anyway (which can be an estimated threat based on family history), thus turning excess consumption of any sort into a cholestrol problem waiting to happen. So, yes, they may if consumed in excess, and definitely yes if cooked in hydrogenated oil/shortening, but not really if consumed as a normal 5-10% or so of your daily food intake(leaning toward the 5%).

Answer 3

I have read many books related to nutrition over the years. I found out that this subject is very contraversial and the science still unsure. Each author seems to have a way of eating and every dietitian contradicts the other. One says eggs are good the other says no they are not good for you. Then you have the esquimo diet, the mediterranean diet, the vegetarian diet etc... If you beleive them all you end up starving and in bad health. So after a while I found out that the best thing to do is to eat from all kind of food groups and to eat what you like but MODERATLY. The latest study shows that the healthiest people are the one who eat less than 1600 calories per day. So if you like eggs, go ahead and indulge yourself when you feel like eating them but try not to overdo it. Twice or 3 times a week is good enough.

Answer 4

Only if you eat the yolks. The whites don't contain cholesterol. So you can eat as much of them as you like. Often liquid egg products sold at the grocery stores (such as Egg Beaters, etc.) contain only the egg whites (no yolks). The yolk section (the yellow section) in the middle of the egg is what contains the cholesterol. If you are on a diet and need to limit the amount of cholesterol, just remove the yolk section. You still prepare many recipes that call for eggs without using the yolk section and still have it come out just as tasty.

Answer 5

They have a lot of cholesterol in them but I saw a current affairs program the other night that said the health benefits of eggs may actually help to keep your cholesterol level down.

I don't know a lot about that claim, but my personal belief has always been that if you eat a healthy balanced diet, theres no need to stress about cholesterol unless you have cholesterol problems. Low cholesterol can cause problems too, and eggs have a lot of nutrition so I try to eat them regularly.

Answer 6

Most definitely. The yolk has approximately 213 grams of cholesterol in it. The white of the egg has no cholesterol. I use products like Eggbeaters which are made only with egg whites. Occasionally, I do eat hard boiled eggs. However, I do it so rarely that I don't think it has much impact on my cholesterol.

Answer 7

For a long time, the theory was the yolk of the egg increased cholesterol, but that has changed in recent years. Now, four to six eggs a week are considered safe.

Answer 8

It depends on a lot of factors, including age, activity level, and family history of cardiac problems. But generally, yes, eating fatty foods will contribute to high cholesterol.

Answer 9

Yes they sure do add to it.....if yours is high and you really like eggs then you can use just the egg whites that are already sorted from the egg at hte grocery stire...land o lakes makes one type....and they do have the lower cholesterol eggs

Answer 10

yes, a friend of mine told me that we are only to eat egg once or twice a week because of its high cholesterol level.