Cholesterol study flawed says BEIC
The British Egg Industry Council says that a new statistical analysis of egg consumption published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition contains significant anomalies.
In the study, physicians consuming a high number of eggs appeared to have higher mortality although there was no relationship found with cardiovascular disease or stroke.
“There are a number of anomalies in this research which do not accord with previous findings,” says nutritionist Cath MacDonald. “The physicians with higher egg intake were older, smoked more cigarettes, were less physically active and had a higher prevalence of hypertension and diabetes than did those with lower egg intake – all factors which would be likely to increase mortality”, says Cath MacDonald.
“In addition, the group eating more than 7 eggs a week was only 8% of the cohort and may well not have been statistically or dietetically representative of the overall group.“
In fact, editorial comment in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition itself confirms that the ‘surprising’ findings require validation and points out that studies with much greater numbers of subjects have found no relationship between egg consumption and myocardial infarction, cardiovascular disease, death, or all-cause mortality.