how many eggs?

[gwilacuz]

i eat 5 eggs a day, is this healthy? generally i will have scrambled eggs(3) for breakfast and hard boiled(2) in the afternoon. Been doing this for a while now. just curious if there were any side effects or potential health concerns from doing this.

[Ilikebeef]

completely fine, I wouldnt even consider 5 alot.

[Mrpb]

i eat 5 eggs a day, is this healthy?

Depends on your lipids and genetics.

But generally speaking 5 eggs daily is quite a lot. On average each daily egg increases LDL-C with 0.09 mmol/L iirc. It also increases your risk for heart failure. So if you're striving for the lowest CVD risk it's better to limit your egg intake.

[ironwill2008]

.....Still lurking..........

[Voyager92]

Depends on your lipids and genetics.

But generally speaking 5 eggs daily is quite a lot. On average each daily egg increases LDL-C with 0.09 mmol/L iirc. It also increases your risk for heart failure. So if you're striving for the lowest CVD risk it's better to limit your egg intake.

This is a bit surprising to me. I usually eat 3 eggs per day, sometimes 5. Do you have good articles/studies on this?

[AdamWW]

This is a bit surprising to me. I usually eat 3 eggs per day, sometimes 5. Do you have good articles/studies on this?

These are correlations, not definite results for each person. The good thing is, you can actually test this on yourself, unlike other CVD risk factors like smoking which can take a lifetime to ever manifest if at all; some people smoke two packs a day and never get cancer while some people smoke barely any (1-5 a week) and get cancer at a young age.

Like Mrpb said, just go in and have your levels checked with your current intake... if you're running at solid levels, there isn't any cause for immediate concern.

You can also adjust intake and see how you, personally, respond to dietary cholesterol.

Personally, I don't appear to have any impact. I ate chicken, eggs, etc, for my whole life and always had pretty good lipid levels... about a 160 total, 60+ HDL, LDL always below 80, and lower triglycerides.

I went vegan for 3 years... so ZERO cholesterol, same exercise, etc, and my lipids didn't change at all... maybe up/down within like a 1% range...

So for me, it doesn't seem to matter.

[Mrpb]

This is a bit surprising to me. I usually eat 3 eggs per day, sometimes 5. Do you have good articles/studies on this?

On eggs & cholesterol:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11333841
http://www.katancalculator.nl/

On eggs & risk for heart failure:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5367008/
https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/abs/...aha.107.734210

Like mentioned by Adam best thing to do is to get your lipids checked. Seems like my LDL-C went from 3.2 to 2.7 mmol/L by reducing my egg intake & increasing unsaturated fats (how much of it was caused by eggs is unknown to me). It's possible I may be able to get it into the optimal range by reducing my egg intake even further.

These are correlations,

That's true for the heart failure data, but the cholesterol data comes from controlled studies. And yes you are right, individual variability can make an important difference.

[AdamWW]

That's true for the heart failure data, but the cholesterol data comes from controlled studies. And yes you are right, individual variability can make an important difference.

I also sometimes wonder about the effects in controlled settings when you consume things like higher fiber amounts, etc, and mixed meals with the cholesterol vs. just eating only eggs or something similar. I know fiber is supposed to have a positive impact on mitigating the absorption of dietary cholesterol... so you might think an omelette filled with spinach, mushrooms, tomatoes, etc, would have less impact than just eating 6 whole eggs scrambled in bacon fat or butter.

[Mrpb]

I also sometimes wonder about the effects in controlled settings when you consume things like higher fiber amounts, etc, and mixed meals with the cholesterol vs. just eating only eggs or something similar. I know fiber is supposed to have a positive impact on mitigating the absorption of dietary cholesterol... so you might think an omelette filled with spinach, mushrooms, tomatoes, etc, would have less impact than just eating 6 whole eggs scrambled in bacon fat or butter.

I haven't looked in detail at the 17 studies they used for their calculations but I suspect the majority of them would have controlled for butter, bacon and fiber.

[dski79]

i eat 5 eggs a day, is this healthy? generally i will have scrambled eggs(3) for breakfast and hard boiled(2) in the afternoon. Been doing this for a while now. just curious if there were any side effects or potential health concerns from doing this.

eat the eggs!!!!! if you wanna take the yolk out, ill take them!! not only are the yolks full of nutrients, they are loaded in healthy fats! and not to mention loaded in the GOOD CHOLESTEROL!! EAT THE EGGS!!!!!!!!!!!!

[mrgrtt123]

I only take atleast 2 eggs per day since it is high in cholesterol.

[dski79]

I only take atleast 2 eggs per day since it is high in cholesterol.

eggs are high in cholesterol YES! but they are high in HDL cholesterol!! HDL is GOOD cholesterol as is there is GOOD fats!!! there was a study a while back, that said Alaskans have the lowest heart disease risk by far than anyone on the lower 48.... the reason being is cuz salmon with HIGH fats and EGGS with high fats are 75% of their diet!!! if not more in certain areas!!! in the research that was done, was under the assumption that eggs were really high in cholesterol, and salmon was high in omega fats! what changed the whole scope of fats was that high HDL in eggs lowers your LDL! LDL is bad..... HDL is good!!! and that the more good fats you eat, is much more beneficial to heart health!!! eat the eggs!!!!

[Mrpb]

eggs are high in cholesterol YES! but they are high in HDL cholesterol!! HDL is GOOD cholesterol as is there is GOOD fats!!!

HDL was always thought of as the good cholesterol. Now in 2018 we know that increasing HDL does nothing for CVD risk.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs...KyYyxzT55Qkdo&

As mentioned before eating egg yolks does tend to increase LDL a little.

[ironwill2008]

My memory isn't what it used to be but is this the guy who convinced a bunch of people to microwave whole unshelled eggs?

Lulz. Among other scams, yes.

[Strawng]

HDL was always thought of as the good cholesterol. Now in 2018 we know that increasing HDL does nothing for CVD risk.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs...KyYyxzT55Qkdo&

That's not necessarily true that increasing HDL does nothing for CVD risk outside of treatments that artificially increase it. It has to do with the size of the particles:https://www.verywellhealth.com/is-ra...er-all-1745835. Current treatments may be ineffective because they only increase "big" particles of HDL, while an abundance of the "small" particles are what likely correlates to better CVD outcomes.

[AdamWW]

eggs are high in cholesterol YES! but they are high in HDL cholesterol!! HDL is GOOD cholesterol as is there is GOOD fats!!! there was a study a while back, that said Alaskans have the lowest heart disease risk by far than anyone on the lower 48.... the reason being is cuz salmon with HIGH fats and EGGS with high fats are 75% of their diet!!! if not more in certain areas!!! in the research that was done, was under the assumption that eggs were really high in cholesterol, and salmon was high in omega fats! what changed the whole scope of fats was that high HDL in eggs lowers your LDL! LDL is bad..... HDL is good!!! and that the more good fats you eat, is much more beneficial to heart health!!! eat the eggs!!!!

why are you yelling

[Heizz]

It's fine OP.

At the end of the day you just want to be sure that you are meeting your caloric and macro goals.

[Mrpb]

That's not necessarily true that increasing HDL does nothing for CVD risk outside of treatments that artificially increase it.

Fair point. I wrote that increasing HDL-C does nothing for CVD risk. If you'd like me to be more precise: invariably increasing HDL-C doesn't appear to do anything for CVD risk.

The evidence doesn't only come from those trials by the way: people with genetic mutations that cause high HDL-C do not have a lower CVD risk.

The particle size hypothesis is certainly interesting but doesn't necessarily change what I said.

[TheShadowMan]

Well, if you're really concerned about cholesterol levels you could try "splitting." By that I mean have half your daily egg intake with the yolks, and half just as the whites. Best of both worlds.

[dski79]

why are you yelling

sorry man i get that a lot! cuz its a habit for me to use the exclamation points! SEE? im not yelling at all! lol! even when i text message people ask me why im yelling lol! see? i did it again! its just easier for me to hit the exclamation point when im typing rather than the period! uggg did it again..... for some strange reason, if im texting or commenting, if i use a period, it doesnt look right to me but i can see why everyone thinks that! i appologize if it came off that way!