Eggs-ellent news…
Eating an egg a day might lower your risk of cardiovascular disease or strokes, a new study has revealed.
That’s right, daily consumption of eggs has been linked with a lower risk of cardiovascular disease, ischaemic heart disease, major coronary events, haemorrhagic strokes and ischaemic strokes.
So, while eggs have long been treated as a threat given their high levels of cholesterol, we haven’t been giving them the credit they deserve for their high-quality protein and other nutritional components.
And there we were, convinced they were our enemy.
The findings came from a groundbreaking study by members of the Peking University School of Public Health in Beijing, which saw the participation of 461,213 adults aged between 30 and 79 years of age who were free of any prior cancers, cardiovascular diseases or diabetes.
Conducted over a period of nine years, beginning in 2004, participants were asked about the frequency of their consumption, with a total of 13.1% saying they would have one egg a day, while 9.1% said their rate of consumption was rare.
The mean age of the participants was 50.7 years, with 41% being male and 42.35 living in urban areas. Approximately half of them had between one and three eggs per week, with the average rate of consumption being .47 eggs per day.
Upon following up the results of this survey, 9,985 people died of cardiovascular disease, while 5,103 experienced major coronary events. Almost 84,000 were diagnosed with a heart disease.
Comparing daily consumers with non-consumers, the results found that those who ate an egg on a daily basis had an 18% lower risk of Cardiovascular disease, 28% lower risk of haemorrhagic stroke death and 12% reduced risk of ischemic heart disease when compared with non-consumers.
Speaking to CNN, Canqing Yu, co-author of the study and associate professor at the university said: “Existing studies on the association between eggs and cardiovascular diseases are controversial due to small sample size and limited information.”
“Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of deaths in China, which accounted for half of the total mortality. Stroke, including hemorrhagic and ischemic stroke, is the first cause of premature death, followed by ischemic heart disease.”
Globally, cardiovascular disease results in a total of 17.7 million deaths annually, which has made it the leading cause of death worldwide, accounting for approximately 31% of all fatalities.
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