For a long time popular belief was that eggs should be avoided or limited due to their high dietary cholesterol content. It is thought that this belief came from a 1970s due to a misunderstanding about how dietary cholesterol affected blood cholesterol. The original study fed butter to rats and rabbits believing that dietary cholesterol would convert to blood cholesterol. This made eggs bad news for many. Advice was given to limit them, or to only eat egg white etc.
The problem is that this study ignored the fact that the diet these animals was subjected to was also very high in saturated fat (a topic for another time). It may not have been realised at the time that this can raise LDL cholesterol significantly.
In fact it has been shown many times since then that the effect of dietary cholesterol on blood cholesterol is very small and “clinically insignificant”. Despite this however, this myth still persists. This morning I was reading an article about healthy breakfasts and it had a section that claimed it is safe to eat up to 4 eggs a week before raising your risk of heart disease due to the high cholesterol. This information is so out of date now, even the NHS acknowledge this and have done for a number of years.
Why is it that such out of date advice still persists?
