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A good start to the day: the breakfast egg is celebrating its comeback - wrongly demonized for a long time, according to a new study. (archive image)
Robert Michael/dpa
For years, eggs were considered a health risk - full of cholesterol and bad for the heart. If you wanted to keep an eye on your cholesterol levels, it was better to avoid them. But now researchers say: It's all nonsense!
For decades, the breakfast egg was treated like the villain at the breakfast table: too much cholesterol, bad for the heart, a maximum of one egg per week - that's what it was said for a long time. But now the case is being reopened.
A new study by the University of South Australia has cracked the old health dogma - in the truest sense of the word: two eggs a day can actually lower cholesterol levels - if the rest of your diet is right. In other words, it is not the egg that raises the dangerous LDL cholesterol - but the bacon next to it.
In a clinical study involving 61 people, researchers compared different diets: One with two eggs a day, the other with low cholesterol but high saturated fat, another with a control group with just one egg a week.
Particularly interesting: the group that ate two eggs a day did best. Despite having more cholesterol in their diet, LDL levels fell - the very bad cholesterol that has long been warned about. At the same time, they ate less saturated fat.
So it is not the cholesterol in the food that causes the problem - but side dishes such as sausage or butter. As study leader Jon Buckley told Science Daily: "Eggs have been unfairly demonized. It's the saturated fats that really drive up cholesterol levels."
He explains: "You could say we've provided hard-hitting - or rather hard-boiled - evidence in favor of the humble egg. So it's not the egg you need to fear at breakfast - but rather the extra portion of bacon or the side of sausage that can really damage your heart."
Worth knowing: Parts of the study were supported by the American Egg Nutrition Center. No wonder the results are pleasing for chicken lovers. Nevertheless, it was carried out in a scientifically sound manner.
Other studies also show this: People who eat eggs regularly do not live more dangerously - on the contrary: a study with older people shows that six eggs a week reduce the risk of heart disease.
