Eggs are one of the few foods that should be classified as “superfoods.” They are loaded with nutrients, some of which are rare in the modern diet. Here are 9 health benefits of eggs that have been confirmed in human studies.
In fact, eggs are pretty much the perfect food. They contain a little bit of almost every nutrient you need.
If you can get your hands on pastured or omega-3 enriched eggs, these are even more nutrient dense. They contain higher amounts of omega-3 fat and are much higher in vitamin A and E (2, 3).
High in cholesterol, but don’t adversely affect blood cholesterol
It is true that eggs are high in cholesterol. In fact, a single egg contains 186 mg (1Trusted Source).
However, it’s important to keep in mind that cholesterol in the diet may not necessarily have an impact on blood cholesterol levels or risk of heart disease (5Trusted Source, 6Trusted Source, 7Trusted Source).
The liver actually produces large amounts of cholesterol every single day. In fact, when you eat more cholesterol, your liver has the ability to regulate cholesterol levels by producing less to even it out (5Trusted Source, 7Trusted Source).
Nevertheless, the response to eating eggs varies between individuals (8Trusted Source):
In 70% of people, eating cholesterol may not raise blood cholesterol or only mildly raise it (termed “hypo responders”)
In the other 30% of the population (termed “hyper responders”), eggs or other sources of dietary cholesterol may lead to a large rise in blood cholesterol
However, people with genetic disorders like familial hypercholesterolemia or carriers of a gene variant called APOE4 may want to consider eating eggs in Choline is a nutrient that most people don’t even know exists, yet it is an incredibly important substance and is often grouped with the B vitamins.
Choline is used to build cell membranes and has a role in producing signaling molecules in the brain, along with various other functions (16Trusted Source).
The symptoms of choline deficiency are serious, so fortunately it’s rare in most healthy, non-pregnant people, mainly because the body makes choline.
Whole eggs are an excellent source of choline. A single egg contains more than 100 mg of this very important nutrient.moderation.
It is well known that having high levels of LDL is linked to an increased risk of heart disease (17Trusted Source, 18Trusted Source).
But many people don’t realize that LDL is divided into subtypes based on the size of the particles.
There are small, dense LDL particles and large LDL particles.
Many studies have shown that people who have predominantly small, dense LDL particles have a higher risk of heart disease than people who have mostly large LDL particles (19Trusted Source, 20Trusted Source).
Even if eggs tend to mildly raise LDL cholesterol in some people, it is thought that eating eggs tend to mainly increase large (or “more buoyant”) LDL levels instead of the small, dense LDL particles, which may explain the association with reduced risk of heart disease (21Trusted Source, 22Trusted Source).
However, some recent studies have found egg consumption to be linked with increased risk of death from heart disease, so the research is mixed and more randomized controlled trials are needed to confirm benefits of egg consumption to heart health (23Trusted Source, 24Trusted Source, 25Trusted Source).
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