The egg industry is in a huff after a recent study, conducted by researchers at Western, indicated egg yolks have health detriments comparable to smoking regularly.
John David Spence, a researcher who conducted the experiment, was adamant about the dangers of regular egg yolk consumption.
“We’ve known for 50 years that dietary cholesterol is bad for you,” Spence said. “Two eggs have more than four days worth of cholesterol.”
It is this cholesterol that can lead to health issues, such as heart disease and strokes.
“[Arterial] plaque builds up faster in smokers and egg-yolk eaters,” he asserted. “If you want to live to be 80, why would you eat them?”
However, the egg industry has been quick to argue against Spence’s evaluation.
“I don’t think it’s fair to compare egg yolks to smoking,” Karen Harvey, nutrition officer for Egg Farmers of Canada, commented. “There’s been a lot of scientific research done that shows yolks are not associated with heart disease and stroke.”
Harvey also noted, cholesterol aside, yolks have other health benefits that further prevent them from being comparable to dangerous activities like smoking.
While Harvey admitted to being surprised by the results, she contested they were far from absolute.
“When you’re considering scientific findings, it’s important to look at a variety of sources,” she explained. “This is just one study.”
Despite this, Spence adamantly defends the results of the study, even going so far as to claim the egg industry uses misinformation to beguile consumers.
“The egg market has been so successful with propaganda, which is all based on half-truths,” Spence explained. “They’re akin to the tobacco industry.”
Findings, such as those from Spence’s study, may have a large impact on the food industry—and on consumers.
“I think that after results like those from the study, consumers will start to wonder,” Joy Shinn, executive director of FOODTECH Canada, said. “The food industry is very consumer-receptive.”
However, Shinn also noted the importance of careful review and patience to ensure accurate results.
Despite the negative consequences the study’s findings could have for the egg market, Spence was quick to assure eggs were not all bad, and he had no intentions of hurting the egg business.
“I’m not trying to put egg marketers out of business,” Spence explained. “Egg whites are fine, they’re a good source of protein.”
Loading ...
Please refer to:
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/are-eggs-really-as-bad-for-your-arteries-as-cigarettes/
I must admit I was a little disappointed after reading my copy of “the gazette” today. Mr. Cameron Michael Smith wrote the above article on a recent study out of our very own Western University. I hope that Mr. Smith actually read the article before writing his take on it.
This study is what is referred to as an epidemiological study, which looks at associations between things, but can’t be used to determine causality (in this case, that eating eggs accelerates atherosclerosis). Let’s look at what the article DOES state:
- the researchers found an association between egg eating and the amount of atherosclerosis in the carotid arteries
- the researchers controlled for some relevant confounding factors but not others (stated right in the article)
- data collection relied on self-reported dietary data which is may be prone to error (if I asked you how many eggs you ate last month could you tell me?)
- even if the dietary reporting accurate, it’s still epidemiological in nature which tells us nothing about causality
Good. I thought eating embryotic fluid was a little creepy anyway.
After reading the article, here are my thoughts for discussion:
1. Only referred subjects were counted. No medical issue meant exclusion from the study.
2. Exercise was excluded – ‘golf twice a week’ couldn’t be quantified – yet memory recall of egg eating habits over a lifetime is taken to be reliable.
3. The quality of life factor: See in table-2 the average age of admission (or referral for the study) is 15 years earlier for those who didn’t eat eggs.
4. What next, we’ll start counting oxygen-years? (This notion is facetious, but it makes some sense.)
5. Figure 1 has three charts. They should have been combined. As shown in chart A, the older you are the more time has passed during which arteries can gunk up. As shown in chart C, egg-yolk-years are the only
dietary factor shown. To this, I ask the obvious: What other factors would exaggerate or minimize the effect were they included? But there is one more thing to consider if I guess how the charts might fit together:
The median age at which this gunked up artery problem becomes a conscious thing is about 70 years of age. Margarine became really popular in the 1950s and 60s. 2012 less 70 years is 1942. So, growing
bodies in or just out of puberty got stuffed with unstable, artificial fats. I understand those unstable fats behave in strange ways, even once they are adopted into bodily tissue. Here’s a book to read if you’re wondering how this could be: https://alpha.lib.uwo.ca/search~S20?/tthe+fats+of+life/tfats+of+life/1%2C2%2C2%2CB/frameset&FF=tfats+of+life+essential+fatty+acids+in+health+and+disease&1%2C1%2C