An egg a day may be the key to preventing cardiovascular disease in adults, a study of almost half a million people suggests.Find the more health care news from SHINE. The study published Monday in the journal Heart found people who ate one egg per day were 18 percent less likely to die from cardiovascular disease, compared to adults who did not consume eggs.
Cardiovascular disease, also called heart disease, manifests itself as heart attacks and heart failure, strokes, arrhythmias and heart valve problems, such as stenosis and prolapse, according to the American Heart Association. The study found people who ate one egg per day had a 26 percent lower risk of hemorrhagic stroke and a 28 percent lower risk of dying from this type of stroke.
Additionally, daily egg consumers had a 12 percent lower risk of ischemic heart disease. Canqing Yu, co-author of the study and an associate professor at the Peking University School of Public Health in Beijing, told CNN eggs contain high amounts of cholesterol, which was thought to be harmful. In the past, doctors cautioned people from eating too many. However, eggs also contain protein and are rich in nutrients. "Existing studies on the association between egg and cardiovascular diseases are controversial due to small sample size and limited information," Yu said. That's why Yu and his fellow researchers chose to examine the effects of egg consumption on 416,213 healthy participants over nine years. The large size of the study "is a strength," Caroline Richard, an assistant professor of agricultural life and environmental sciences at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, told CNN.
Richard was not involved in the research. Richard points out that the study is observational, so it and cannot show a direct cause and effect, but "this is a very large study, and that in itself is a strength, and the researchers have done the best possible job to control for other factors." Almost 18 million people die from cardiovascular disease every year, accounting for 31 percent of deaths worldwide. Eighty percent of CVD deaths are from heart attacks and strokes, according to the World Health Organization.
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