Are Egg Yolks Bad for You, or What?!

For years, it seemed that egg yolks were no longer removed from the breakfast table. After decades of warnings about the amount of cholesterol in yolks, researchers changed course: Studies suggested that dietary cholesterol had minimal impact on blood cholesterol levels and touted the nutritional benefits of egg yolks ( choline to burn fat, vitamin D for bone building) . In 2016, the federal government’s Dietary Guidelines even raised the recommended daily limit in eggs The message was: eat!

But lately, the headlines tease a different story. A study published in March 2019 in it Journal of the American Medical Association found that egg yolk consumption was correlated with heart disease and death from any cause. It was exactly the opposite news to what we were used to hearing. And so some of us start looking at our sunny omelets and breakfast scrambles with mild separation anxiety.

So what’s the deal? Are egg yolks healthy or not? We asked several leading nutritionists about the NEVER study. They gave us their opinion on how many eggs, and which parts, belong in their diet.

Why did opinions about egg yolks change again?

“He NEVER The study said there is an increased risk of all-cause mortality and heart disease mortality with even half of an egg yolk consumed per day. And it’s kind of a dose-dependent response: the more you eat of the egg yolk, the greater the risk,” he says. dana hunnesPh.D, RD, MPH, Senior Dietitian at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center and Adjunct Assistant Professor at UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.

“But that raises the question: Is it a double or triple increase? It wasn’t a significantly big risk.”

Hunnes is vegan, but she wouldn’t tell a patient who eats one egg yolk a day to stop because of the new study. She warns against demonizing cholesterol, which isn’t exactly an alien life form.

“Our body naturally contains cholesterol, because cell walls are built of cholesterol,” she says. “So should you completely eliminate cholesterol from your diet? I think the jury is still out on that.”

Other experts agree that NEVER study was far from conclusive or prescriptive.

“Yes, you can have eggs, we are both having them for breakfast today,” say Lauren Slayton, MS, RD, and Carolyn Brown MS, RD, of Food Coaches NYC. “This latest egg study published in NEVER it was a pooled analysis. This means that data from multiple studies was pooled and hypotheses developed, and that’s all you can do from this data. You cannot draw broad conclusions without a controlled experiment.”

Slayton and Brown point to a study of a similar format that suggested that hormone supplements lowered the risk of heart disease in women. “This was turned upside down with actual experiments. Most of the time, the conclusions of these combined studies do not hold up in controlled experiments,” they say.

He NEVER The study was based on periodic questionnaires, not food diaries. Slayton and Brown use both in their practice and see how the questionnaires, which they give out on initial visits, often don’t reflect the reality of the here and now: “That’s like drawing conclusions about someone’s fashion sense from what they’re wearing.” decades ago.”

“The study was really just a snapshot in time, of where the subjects were in their diets,” says registered dietitian Andrea N. Giancoli, MPH, RD. “There may be other confounding factors related to why they were at increased risk of cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality. Study is certainly not something we should ignore. But we don’t need to jump to conclusions and say, ‘Okay, no more eggs.'”

Egg Yolk Nutrition

A large egg has only 72 calories but 6 grams of protein, which is essential for building and maintaining the muscle that keeps your metabolism going and body fat low. Most of that protein is in the Whiteanother reason why egg yolks were considered disposable for years.

But today, the scientific consensus holds that egg yolks have real health benefits. In fact, an egg yolk contains more overall nutrients than an egg white.

The yolks have several vitamins, including A, B2 (riboflavin), B6, B12, and D (which the body does not produce naturally). The yolk also contains most of an egg’s count of minerals such as calcium, iron, phosphorus, zinc and thiamine.

“Egg yolks contain a lot of vitamins, so will you lose if you skip the yolk and don’t take a multivitamin? That’s possible,” says UCLA’s Hunnes.

The fat and protein in the yolks make dishes that include yolks more filling, which could cut down on snacking later, and accelerates absorption of some vitamins.

“I usually say, ‘Don’t pick the yolks out of the eggs,'” says Amy Shapiro, MS, RD, CDN, of Royal Nutrition NYC. “Because when people take out the yolk, they start looking for another source of flavor. That’s when they start adding cheese, which has virtually no nutritional benefits, more or less calcium, and a bit of protein. Egg yolks have vitamins B and D and choline, all of these really great nutrients.”

Egg yolks are particularly rich in choline, an essential nutrient that has received much attention in recent years. Choline helps the body. Burn calories and it is important for brain development and memory. The yolk also provides carotenoids such as lutein and zeaxanthinwhich are essential for eye health and protect against macular degeneration as we age.

That said, experts don’t recommend an all-you-can-eat policy.

Egg Yolks vs. Egg Whites

In a 2015 issue of the newspaper nutrientsDonald J. McNamara, Ph.D, (former executive director of the Egg Nutrition Center) noted that only one food has been officially restricted in the pursuit of cardiovascular health: the egg.

Eggs have the seventh highest cholesterol level among all foods (186 milligrams per large egg), and is almost entirely in the yolk.

In 1968, the American Heart Association recommended that Americans consume no more than 300 mg of cholesterol per day and no more than three egg yolks per week. The prevailing belief was that eating cholesterol-rich foods raised blood cholesterol, potentially clotting arteries and leading to heart disease.

But the ensuing decades of research could not support that claim. Scientists found that saturated fat, not cholesterol, was the main culprit in increasing “bad” cholesterol levels in the blood.

“Research has shown that most of the cholesterol in our bodies is produced by our liver, not from the cholesterol we eat. The liver is stimulated to produce cholesterol primarily by the saturated fats and trans fats in our diet, not dietary cholesterol. said Anthony Komaroff, MDeditor-in-chief of the Harvard Health Letter.

A large egg has 5 grams of fat and 1.6 grams of saturated fat, and 99 percent of both are found in the yolk. Today, the AHA recommends limiting your intake of saturated fat to 13 grams a day for a 2,000 calorie diet.

So even eating a couple of yolks a day leaves a lot of leeway. And as late as 2018, studies found that the cholesterol in eggs was not well absorbed by the body and had a negligible effect on blood cholesterol in men and women.

So are egg yolks bad for you?

Ultimately, the dietitians we spoke to said that the NEVER The study had not made them change their previous recommendations: one egg yolk a day, on average, or a weekly quota of about six or seven. (That means you could eat two in one day and none the next.)

Giancoli says his recommendation is to make eggs using a whole egg, plus extra whites, in a scramble with lots of vegetables: spinach, tomatoes, onions, and mushrooms. If she wants to eat just egg whites, Shapiro also advises piling on the veggies or supplementing with a quarter avocado (which she recommends as a healthy serving, not half the fruit she’d get at a restaurant). Ella can be spread on whole wheat or rye toast, if you’re craving cereal.

But experts agree that the worst case scenario would be to overreact to the egg study with substitutions that aren’t actually healthy at all, which is all too common these days. “Take the study with a grain of salt, but also look at their other eating patterns,” says Shapiro.

“There are so many other health problems out there,” he continues. “Saturated fat intake is very important in terms of raising our cholesterol. And we know we shouldn’t eat red or processed meat more than twice a week for colon health, but nowadays everyone puts bacon on everything, because it’s paleo.”