What is it eggs-actly about eggs and my heart?

24 May 2018

At the Irish Heart Foundation, we aim to provide accurate and evidence-based information on heart health to help you make informed decisions about your health.

You may have read news reports earlier this week about a new study that claimed eating an egg a day could help reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease such as stroke and heart disease. But what does it really mean for your heart health?

The study, which received wide press coverage, was carried out in China and published in the journal Heart. It suggested that people who consume an egg a day could significantly reduce their risk of cardiovascular diseases such as stroke and heart disease compared with eating no eggs.

However, our resident expert dietitian Sarah Noone said it was important to emphasise that diet was more complicated than simply picking single foods (in this instance eggs) and linking them to heart disease and stroke risk.

“Eggs are not eaten in isolation and we need to consider our whole diet and dietary pattern to reduce our overall risk of heart disease and stroke. There are many factors which cause heart disease and stroke and no single food or nutrient is solely responsible for this. This does not prove that eating eggs protects against heart disease, as there may be other differences between the people eating more eggs that cause these differences,” she explained.