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A couple months ago, I consumed around 8 eggs a day for several months. This was largely based on research from the Paleo Diet arguing that saturated fats and cholesterol wasn't nearly as bad for you as nutritional advice would suggest.

A study, however, came out recently claiming that eggs were as bad for you as smoking:

From Prevention.com

Researchers from Western University in Canada examined over 1,200 men and women to come to the conclusion that regularly eating egg yolks was two-thirds as bad as smoking when it comes to carotid plaque in the arteries, a known risk factor for stroke and heart attack.

Some aggressive lines from a paper by J.D. Spence, D.J. Jenkins, J. Davignon, "Dietary cholesterol and egg yolks: not for patients at risk of vascular disease", Can J Cardiol, 26 (2010), pp. e336–e339

Although some studies showed no harm from consumption of eggs in healthy people, this outcome may have been due to lack of power to detect clinically relevant increases in a low-risk population. Moreover, the same studies showed that among participants who became diabetic during observation, consumption of one egg a day doubled their risk compared with less than one egg a week.

What does the research say on the health impacts of consuming several eggs a day?

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  • 5
    possible duplicate of Is eating eggs bad for me?
    – Wertilq
    Jun 28, 2013 at 14:17
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    @Wertilq: At least this one shows research effort.
    – Aeronth
    Jun 28, 2013 at 14:27
  • @Wertliq, I agree with Aeronth, so I don't vote to close. In fact, at this point, it would be better closing the original question you linked, rather than this one :^)
    – Carlo Alterego
    Jun 28, 2013 at 21:36
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    Quibble: "two-thirds as bad as smoking when it comes to carotid plaque in the arteries" is nothing like "as bad for you as smoking"... Comparing eggs to just one of the dozens of effects of smoking screams of the press-release equivalent of clickbait: by the same logic we could compare eating salt to falling out of a plane because they both increase blood pressure...
    – user56reinstatemonica8
    Jul 18, 2017 at 14:31
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    Do you have regular or at least annual primary doctor check ups? Have you had your cholesterol checked lately? What is your age and sex? Do you drink much red wine? Do you exercise routinely cardio type exercise and if so how often and for how long on average guessing? Do you smoke cigarettes or marijuana or do any other type of drugs (street or legal)? Do you have any health conditions going on with you already e.g. high blood pressure, etc.? Give people some personal detail to work on for such a personal question about you eating all these eggs for months. All these questions matter.
    – The Milk Man
    Jul 20, 2017 at 5:32

1 Answer 1

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There isn't a lot I could find on this but one paper stood out:

Egg consumption and risk of coronary heart disease and stroke: dose-response meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies

Their conclusion was (emphasis mine):

Higher consumption of eggs (up to one egg per day) is not associated with increased risk of coronary heart disease or stroke. The increased risk of coronary heart disease among diabetic patients and reduced risk of hemorrhagic stroke associated with higher egg consumption in subgroup analyses warrant further studies.

This suggests that whilst an egg a day isn't bad for those with normal metabolisms there are concerns for those who are more sensitive and, as such, increasing the amount (to your 8 a day perhaps) could put the strain on a normal metabolism that a single egg does.

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