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Conference on 'The future of animal products in the human diet: health and environmental concerns'
Symposium 2: Milk and eggs, health and sustainability
6-9 July 2015
The Nutrition Society Summer Meeting 2015
University of Nottingham, Nottingham
An egg is equipped to support life, with a profile of essential micronutrients that is unparalleled by any other food. Eggs are relatively low in energy (326·35 kJ (78 kcal)/medium egg) and saturated fat (1·7 g/medium egg) in comparison with other animal products, and can boast the highest quality of dietary protein, with certain dairy foods(1). Eggs also represent the principal source of dietary cholesterol, which has been a major barrier to egg consumption, primarily because of the outdated, but popular misconception that egg cholesterol converts directly into serum cholesterol, and thus increased risk of CVD. While dietary and serum cholesterol are the same chemical entity, the concentration of serum cholesterol (LDL-cholesterol) falls under the physiological control of whole-body cholesterol homeostasis. This process can be influenced by numerous dietary factors, including dietary cholesterol and fatty acids, but depends ultimately on the essential requirement of cells for cholesterol, and reciprocal interplay between the biosynthesis of cholesterol in tissues, and absorption of cholesterol and bile acids in the gut.
A growing body of evidence from prospective cohort studies(2-4), systematic reviews and meta-analyses(5-8)have culminated in a consensus that eggs, and dietary cholesterol derived from eggs, exert a relatively small and clinically insignificant effect on serum LDL-cholesterol in comparison with other lifestyle factors. In one study, modifiable lifestyle factors accounted for <40 % of CHD mortality, to which eating one egg a day contributed <1 %(3). In 2009, this prompted a relaxation of the long-standing advice in the UK to limit the intake of eggs as the chief source of cholesterol, to no more than three per week(9). This action was later endorsed by the American Heart Association, who removed their guideline to restrict dietary cholesterol intake in healthy individuals to 300 mg/d in 2013(10), and by the US Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee in 2015,...