Egg yolks good/bad ?

[Deins Drengers]

T-nation says it increases Testosterone and makes you feel happier.

 

Some other articles say that they are as bad as drinking alcohol and smoking.

[Brian Li]

It's good, just don't eat too much as it's high in cholesterol.

[George Launchbury]

It's good, just don't eat too much as it's high in cholesterol.

 

 

Whilst that statement was made with the best intentions, it's pushed my rant button.

 

Without wishing to stir up a hornets nest on here ...not least because I don't really have the time or inclination to get involved in a lengthy debate... there is no evidence to suggest that dietary cholesterol intake has anything to do with cholesterol levels in your blood.

 

In fact, you need a good intake of quality cholesterol to repair/make pretty much every cell in your body. That's why egg yolks are so high in the stuff - it takes a lot of cholesterol to grow a healthy baby. From what I understand, the main cause of elevated blood cholesterol is systemic inflammation and damage to your vascular system. The body then needs to send more 'repair blocks' to fix the damage. This is why you find a lot of cholesterol mixed in with the plaque/deposits/etc. It's like blaming firemen for fires, since they always seem to be there.

 

The jury's still out, but artificially lowering cholesterol levels with statins has been linked to dementia and other degenerative disease in the elderly. They aren't able to repair or maintain the cells in the brain/nervous system.

 

Also I'd be careful with the cooking process. I know that a few Paleo experts recommend against consuming too much oxidised/damaged cholesterol (think damaged fats) by breaking the yolks, mixing in air and cooking at too high a temperature (scrambling). There are many other ways to enjoy your eggs.

 

NB: Most of the studies in the press, and that your GP have read, are paid for by drug companies. Lies, damn lies and statistics. Also, anyone taking statins is also advised (and usually does through fear) to improve their diet and do more exercise - since the main rebuttal is usually regards the drop in deaths from heart disease and strokes in statinated patients. Funny they don't want to look at this rise in alzheimers/dementia thing, though...

 

Rant over. Deep breath.

 

PS: People's overall cholesterol profiles (overall levels and/or ratio of 'good' to 'bad' etc) almost always improve vastly when they start to eat cleaner and manage their insulin issues, and take on board higher quality nutrition.

[Samuli Jyrkinen]

The yolk is the best part of the egg with the most nutrients, and besides, cholesterol is crucial for testosterone production

[Rikke Olsen]

Runny/raw egg yolks are super good for me, as they make me VERY happy. One of my favorite foods, without a doubt! I top it on anything.

 

There's probably nothing that will make me not eat eggs. I only have two a day, though. But pretty much every day.

[Mikkel Ravn]

I eat four organic eggs every morning, and it haven't killed me yet, then again I'm only 37.

And before you ask, no it doesn't get boring, the permutations are endless. I highly recommend the chili/banana omelette, omnomnom!

[Mikkel Ravn]

Btw, I found this website quite good. As always, stay critical.

http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com/about-cholesterol-and-health.html

[George Launchbury]

Btw, I found this website quite good. As always, stay critical.

http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com/about-cholesterol-and-health.html

 

...and there's a page regarding eggs yolk: http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com/Egg_Yolk.html

[Joshua Slocum]

Like all things, moderation is key. Get some eggs, including yolks, in your diet. Eating six eggs a day every day is probably overdoing it, but eating several eggs a week is going to help much more than it might hurt. 

[Mikkel Ravn]

...and perhaps the most relevant page:

http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com/Cholesterol-Rich-Foods-Raise-Blood-Cholesterol.html

[Deins Drengers]

...and there's a page regarding eggs yolk: http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com/Egg_Yolk.html

If cooking the yolk destroys part of the nutrient, then it would be good to eat the yolk raw But what about salmonella ? 

[Mikkel Ravn]

You don't need exogenous cholesterol. The body produces what you need.

The editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Cardiology is now recommending people should attain an LDL cholesterol level under 50mg/dL.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3603726/pdf/bumc0026-0124.pdf

 

Any wild guesses on how to reach that goal? 

 

Eggs contain choline. There is research in a new article in the New England Journal of Medicine showing that choline in eggs, poultry, dairy and fish produces the same toxic TMAO as carnitine in red meat:

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1109400

Hmm, interesting, I've been holding off on a bloodtest for too long, I'll get one asap. When I do, I'll return here with the results.

[Rikke Olsen]

Salmonella isn't really a big issue. It pretty much only becomes an issue if you mix a lot of eggs (where one may contain salmonella) heat them without boiling them, and then cool them - especially if you make things like ice cream or some cakes, where you also add sugar. This becomes paradise for salmonella, and then you may get problems.

 

In general, there's no danger eating eggs raw, especially if it's just a few, and you eat them pretty soon after cracking them.

 

My dad (who is head of food safety department at an international company), even ate soft-boiled eggs when he was still on a pretty darn high dose of immunosuppressive (stem cell transfusion) without worrying about it making him sick. He hasn't gotten sick from it, either

 

Also, I know it's not a study per se, but the Jaminets recommend 3 egg yolks per day.
http://perfecthealthdiet.com/recommended-supplements/

[Mikkel Ravn]

Eggs contain choline. There is research in a new article in the New England Journal of Medicine showing that choline in eggs, poultry, dairy and fish produces the same toxic TMAO as carnitine in red meat:

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1109400

This appears to be distortions by the media. Read the following for reference, it puts the TMAO-debate into a different perspective by offering absolute values for a number of different food stuffs, AS WELL as seriously questioning the implications of the study on carnitine and red meat:

http://www.westonaprice.org/blogs/cmasterjohn/2013/04/10/does-carnitine-from-red-meat-contribute-to-heart-disease-through-intestinal-bacterial-metabolism-to-tmao/

[Karl Kallio]

From what I've read high blood cholesterol levels have to do with inactivity and high overall caloric consumption. 

 

Eat reasonably and have an active lifestyle and you should be fine.  But active lifestyle doesn't just mean "exercise" it means getting out of the chair that you park yourself in to do office work/watch TV/play internets.   Some people might have to reduce their coffee consuption (its not the caffeine its some other thing in the grounds, so better filter=less damage) and steer away from excess fat and alcohol as well.

 

What I would worry about with eggs is eating large amounts of factory farmed eggs.  Those poor hens get fed cheap food and all sorts of anti-biotics and hormones.  If you can find normally farmed eggs (not even organic, just reasonable) you'll see the difference in the colour and quality of the yolk.

 

The blood test is farily cheap, (at least where I am) and it's easy to read.  For example here's my last one:

                                                                                   Reference Value

Cholesterol:                          181.00 mg/dl                 140.00 - 220.00

Cholesterol/HDL-COL           3.40                              0.40 - 1.40

HDL Cholesterol                   52.00 mg/dl                   30.00 - 55.00

LDL Cholesterol                    108.00 mg/dl                 30.00 - 150.00

Triglycerides:                         105.00 mg/dl                30.00 - 150.00

[Mikkel Ravn]

It is true that the issue is far from settled and there are certainly arguments to the contrary of the sources I quoted, but one needs to also take into account the source of information. The New England Journal of Medicine is highly respected and has a large impact factor. Weston A. Price is a website that is not peer reviewed, etc. I used to read it too before I decided to be more critical in where I got my information from. 

 

I see what you did there - condescension instead of reflecting on the message the article conveys, nice. True, Weston Price is not peer reviewed, but the article does make use of peer-reviewed papers as references, and is leaps and bounds more credible than your average just-trying-to-make-a-living-blogging-on-the-internet nutrition guru.

 

It is also true that The New England Journal of Medicine is highly respected, yet that is in itself not a reason to instill blind faith in its articles. On the contrary, even the natural sciences are not as 'hard' as we'd like them to be. Scientific understanding of a realm is an evolutionary process, indeed often a somewhat political process, which is subject to change, revision or sometimes even revolution as outlined by Kuhn in "The structure of scientific revolutions". That the Diet-Heart hypothesis of cholesterol is currently dominating the research realm, does not make it a law of nature, carved in stone - It may also be an expression of a hypothesis being elevated as a paradigm within the field, and paradigms are toppled every once in a while. In fact, you could argue that it is our moral obligation to be skeptical and ask questions of the establishment, since this attitude forms one of the cornerstones of science, namely inquiry, not least of established beliefs.

 

And while on the subject of peer reviews, it is obvious to the world that this is regrettably not a bullet-proof approach to establishing the results of inquiries as facts, although it is obviously the best tool we have at our disposal. The peer review system is among other things troubled by publication bias, which is a highly relevant point in the present discussion, since we are also dealing with companies making huge profits from selling Statins as cholesterol lowering agents. For more info see this TED talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/ben_goldacre_what_doctors_don_t_know_about_the_drugs_they_prescribe.html

[George Launchbury]

 

Eggs contain choline. There is research in a new article in the New England Journal of Medicine showing that choline in eggs, poultry, dairy and fish produces the same toxic TMAO as carnitine in red meat:

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1109400

 

So... eggs, poultry, fish and red meat is toxic for a species that clearly evolved as omnivores?

 

Anyone remember that expensive study that 'proved' Bees shouldn't be able to fly? All that says to me is 'bad science'.

[Ruthen]

Excessive usage of anything is bad for you. Egg yolk is good for health and strenght. Be strong with healthy diet and training.

[Marc Proudman]

If cooking the yolk destroys part of the nutrient, then it would be good to eat the yolk raw But what about salmonella ? 

I make mayonnaise with raw egg yolks pretty much everyday as part of my job as a chef, thousands have eaten it and the restaurant hasn't had one report of illness. Always use fresh eggs from a source you trust and you'll be cool.

[Lucas Serur]

I make mayonnaise with raw egg yolks pretty much everyday as part of my job as a chef, thousands have eaten it and the restaurant hasn't had one report of illness. Always use fresh eggs from a source you trust and you'll be cool.

On a side note, any foods prepared with raw eggs (or any raw ingredient, for that matter) should be made for imediate comsumption. Leaving raw food rest overnight can give bacteria enough time to proliferate and produce toxins.

[Larry Roseman]

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/eggs/

 

The population studies don't typically correct for caloric intake. In other words, typically someone eating

a big country breakfast every day, probably has a greater chance of eating more than their maintenance

calories. So is it the 3 eggs daily or eating too much and putting on fat that is increasing the heart disease rate?

A population study can't say, unless it is adjusted - which isn't exact science either.

[Joshua Naterman]

I'm sorry you perceived my words as condescending as it was not my intention to have them interpreted so.

I'm just putting up an alternative argument based on thoughtful peer reviewed science for the OP to consider. It allows one to look at all sides of the argument and then make a more informed decision.

 

I was not aware that the diet of humans through evolution is an open and shut case. 

Welll...we have teeth that are designed for cutting meat, as well as pulverizing seeds and plant organs.

 

We have an intestinal tract that is ~5.7x our height, while pure carnivores are more like 3x their length and pure herbivores have intestinal tracts that are ~12x their body lengths.

 

With very few exceptions, societies around the world have practiced omnivorous eating habits for as long as history has been recorded, including present day, and there's no evidence that the advent of oral and written history has intentionally skewed dietary details.

 

A pure vegetarian diet leaves us with marked nutritional deficits in a few areas.

 

Together, while not "open and shut" per se, in light of these facts, it is fair to say that we are 99.99% intended to be omnivorous.

[Joshua Naterman]

Issues with cholesterol research that you probably don't know about:

 

Excess carbohydrate that is not turned into protein is turned into palmitic acid. Palmitic acid is the ONLY saturated fatty acid that is associated with increased LDL and VLDL cholesterol levels.

 

One pound of beef has 600mg of palmitic acid, and that's the most offensive natural whole food I could find. In the extracted oil department coconut oil is ~20% palmitic acid. Of course it's also ~50% lauric acid (which increases HDL levels) so this is probably a wash, especially since the best statistics (for what that's worth to you, depending on your beliefs) consider 1 point of HDL increase to be equivalent to 3 points of LDL decrease (in terms of health benefits).

 

So, if you have 80g of carbs from pasta (for example) and during the time of absorption you only need 50g of that, 30g is extra. About 50% of the excess is used for making proteins, so you've got 15g of carbs that gets converted into ~7g of palmitic acid.

 

Think about that from a logical perspective... if palmitic acid is the only saturated fatty acid that negatively affects our blood cholesterol levels, and you can easily get ~11x the palmitic acid into your system by a very average over-indulgence in a carbohydrate meal, what's more dangerous to your health: Not knowing how much carbohydrate you need in a given meal, or eating beef? I'll let the math whizzes crunch the numbers on that one.

 

If you are worried about salmonella, which IS technically a concern in raw egg yolks (very low chance, something like 1 in 20,000) you can just consume your egg yolks with a cup of kefir. The colonies in kefir outcompete the salmonella for resources and create a chemical environment that is not good for salmonella's survival, so this is a very good additional layer of safety.

 

You'll want to know that raw egg white has avidin in it, which is an enzyme that will block vitamin B6 absorption unless you heat your eggs to 137 degrees Fahrenheit (I believe that's the temp), but if you're only doing this once a day and you're eating the way you SHOULD be eating, which is to say whole food protein + lots of veggies + some fats at each meal, I don't think you'll be in any danger of developing a vitamin B6 deficiency. There is also, most likely, only a danger of deficiency if you are eating tons of raw egg whites alone.

 

It is important to know that you will only absorb about 55-ish percent of egg protein when it is raw, while you will absorb 89-ish % when it is cooked. Never think that denaturation is always bad. Denaturation is what happens during digestion. Cross-linking is bad, but that is pretty much only an issue with dry heat, and not wet heat, so unless you're making egg chips you don't need to worry about that.

 

 

If you eat more cholesterol, your body will make less, so if you aren't eating oxidized cholesterols or rancid oils then you really have nothing to worry about.

 

The real challenge to take on is learning HOW to modulate your carbohydrate consumption correctly, and to eat an Imperial Crapton of veggies.

[Larry Roseman]

Josh, can you post your source for that 50% number for carbs being "turned into" protein. Are you taking about the skeletal muscle pathway of glucose->pyruvate->alanine primarily? The alanine can be turned back into glucose in the liver (the glucose-alanine cycle) so it's not really out of the picture. 

[FREDERIC DUPONT]

Evidence of widespread control of fire by early humans dates back 100-125,000 years.

If a generation is 20 years, that is 5 to 6,000 generations.

 

I don't know is fire or cooking are sufficient environmental pressure to notably influence evolution of the relative size of the intestinal tract over 5,000 generations, but I suspect not.

If I had to guess, I would say that fire might very well reduce environmental pressure and differences in fitness to reproduce that a large variance in digestive systems might confer to some individuals.