Higher egg consumption not associated with cardiovascular risk
The research, developed by the University of Navarra, has analyzed the eating habits of 14,185 volunteers over six years.
A research carried out by the department of Preventive Medicine of the University of Navarra shows that a higher egg consumption is not associated with an increased cardiovascular risk.
This work has analyzed, over six years, the per diem expenses, lifestyle and diseases suffered by 14,185 young, initially healthy adult volunteers who underwent repeated assessments during the course of prospective follow-up. According to Dr. Itziar Zazpe, "very few programs of study have so far evaluated the relationship between egg consumption and the incidence of cardiovascular problems. Those that do exist have been carried out in the USA and Japan, and except in diabetics, they have not found that this food is associated with increased cardiovascular risk; despite which, various organizations have recommended restricting its consumption. Our study is the first to demonstrate this safety in a European country".
As a consequence of some contrary recommendations, egg consumption in Spain fell from 300 units per person per year in 1987 to 191 units in 2007. In this regard, the researcher stresses that this food "is the main dietary cholesterol source in our diet, with 200 mg. per unit, but at the same time provides high quality protein. It is complete, cheap, with leave energy density, and includes other nutrients that could reduce cardiovascular risk, such as several vitamins of the group B, folic acid and minerals".
The study, conducted at School of Medicine, involved an extensive and comprehensive baseline evaluation of dietary habits, along with egg consumption, as well as successive prospective assessments of new medical diagnoses of cardiovascular events. "Cardiovascular problems" meant whether the volunteer had been medically diagnosed with a myocardial infarction, stroke (cerebrovascular accident), had undergone bypass surgery or other procedure coronary revascularization. All of this was verified by the panel of physicians at project," explains the expert.
3 eggs per week
The team of researchers, led by Miguel Ángel Martínez-González, Full Professor of Preventive Medicine at the University of Navarra, estimated an average weekly consumption of three eggs per person. According to Itziar Zazpe, "these results confirmed that participants who consumed four or more chicken eggs per week had no greater risk of suffering a cardiovascular problem than those who consumed less than one per week".
This finding suggests, for the professor at Degree in Human Nutrition and Dietetics, that the fight against cardiovascular disease should be oriented more towards the promotion of healthy lifestyle habits: "Changes based on epidemiology - such as withdrawal of tobacco, internship exercise or maintaining the correct weight - rather than continuing to insist on limiting egg consumption, as has been advised on occasions, perhaps based exclusively on the chemical content of this food, without taking into account the epidemiological evidence".
The study volunteers - recently published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition - are graduates of the University of Navarra and other universities who make up the SUN (University Follow-up) cohort, made up of more than 20,000 people. Thanks to them, it has been possible to establish relationships between the Mediterranean per diem expenses and the incidence of cardiovascular diseases. The project has been financed by the F.I.S. (high school de Salud Carlos III), the Government of Navarra and other public funding bodies, and has not received any funding from the food industry, according to those responsible for the project.