A high level of blood cholesterol increases the risk of heart disease and it was originally thought that eating cholesterol-rich foods was the most important cause of high blood cholesterol levels, and therefore increased heart disease risk.

It is now accepted that only around a third of the cholesterol in the body comes from the diet and it is saturated fat that adversely affects our blood cholesterol levels to a much greater extent than the dietary cholesterol that we consume.

This means that most people can eat an egg a day, without adversely affecting their blood cholesterol levels, provided that it is in combination with a healthy diet, low in saturated fat.

Who Says So?

• In the UK, all major food and health organisations (including the Food Standards Agency and the British Heart Foundation) now agree that reducing saturated fat intake is the most important dietary factor in reducing blood cholesterol levels. Eggs are not high in saturated fat.
• In March 2006 a paper by A. Lee and B. Griffin was published in The British Nutrition Foundation’s ‘Nutrition Bulletin’ entitled Dietary cholesterol, eggs and coronary heart disease risk in perspective. This paper reviewed the scientific evidence on dietary cholesterol, eggs and heart disease. The authors concluded that egg consumption did not have a significant impact on the risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) because studies showed that saturated fat had a much greater effect on blood cholesterol levels than dietary cholesterol from foods such as eggs.
• In the USA, research conducted in the USA at the University of Arizona and published in 1997 concluded that saturated fat, not dietary cholesterol, is the major dietary contributor to elevated blood cholesterol for the population at large. The research called into question the relevance of a recommended ‘ceiling’ on dietary cholesterol intake and of limitations on egg consumption for the general population.
• Other US research from a large combined study of over 117,000 men and women  showed  that consuming up to one egg a day is unlikely to affect the risk of coronary heart disease in healthy men and women (extract from Hu et al, Journal of the American Medical Association).
• Since 2000 the American Medical Association has removed specific reference to eggs in their dietary recommendations for heart health, although they still put a limit on dietary cholesterol consumption.