This week consumers are hearing the news that “an egg a day may reduce heart disease risk.” Cynics might ask does a cigarette a day reduce the risk of lung cancer too?
The truth is the chicken egg has the highest cholesterol of any other foodstuff—packing as much as 275 mg of cholesterol. In 2008, the American Heart Association’s journal Circulation reported that just one egg a day increased the risk of heart failure in a group of doctors studied. And in 2010, the Canadian Journal of Cardiology lamented the “wide- spread misconception . . . that consumption of dietary cholesterol and egg yolks is harmless.” The article further cautioned that “stopping the consumption of egg yolks after a stroke or myocardial infarction [heart attack] would be like quitting smoking after a diagnosis of lung cancer: a necessary action, but late.”
