Transcription
Sorry to tell you this, guys, but I have some bad news. According to the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, on their website, they revealed that eating eggs can be hazardous to your health.
Okay, and they actually list several scientific studies that prove that eating eggs can be very hazardous. I just want to tell you some of the conclusions from these studies. This is not good, guys. Eating eggs increases the risk of dying from heart attacks. Oh my gosh, I've been eating all these eggs this whole time, and I'm in trouble.
A 2021 study found that the addition of a half an egg a day was associated with more deaths from heart disease, cancer, and all causes. This is not good; this is scary. Another study they mentioned found that eating eggs can also be connected to developing certain types of cancer: colon, rectal, and prostate. Oh my gosh, I'm going to have to change all my videos, change my diet. This is not exciting, guys. I mean, I thought I was the expert; apparently not.
Well, I tell you, we're going to explore this topic a little bit deeper, and I think you're going to be shell shocked. I'm sorry, I just had to do that.
Before you evaluate a topic and try to figure out what's truth or not truth, you have to first make sure that the data is good data, not bad data. You want to make sure that you include all of the data so there's no missing information. You want to make sure you don't exaggerate the data.
I have all the studies right here; I printed them out. There are like 10 different studies about eggs. Seven of these studies are observational, two are meta-analyses of observational studies, one is a review article, and one is a systematic review.
These observational studies are based on food frequency questionnaires. None of them is an experimental study or randomized controlled trial, which is a study in which a treatment, procedure, or program is intentionally introduced, and a result or outcome is observed.
The problem is with our recall. Who's going to remember what they ate in the last 12 months? I don't even remember what I ate last weekend. When I was in practice, I would ask people, you know, what did you eat the previous week? They couldn't remember. And then come to find out, they kind of exaggerated, talking about all the good things but not the bad things.
So it's very, very difficult, if not impossible, to extract the exact thing that person ate and the amounts. It's not credible. Questionnaire studies do not prove causation, and as far as an association, yes, there's an association, but there are so many variables.
Why do you pick eggs out of the million variables? What about their smoking? What about their drinking? What about their medication side effects? What about their genetics? What about their inactivity? What about the donut that they just ate? Why didn't you pick that? It's literally impossible to isolate this link between two things.
Now, at first, I couldn't find if they were actually credible studies that showed some randomized trials, things like that. But then I dug a little deeper, and I found that 100% of those meta-analyses were complete questionnaire self-reported studies. So right there, I can't even evaluate whether the study shows any real substantiation or not because it's based on questionnaire studies.
So that pretty much puts that data into a certain category. Not to mention the conflict of interest. The Canadian Journal of Cardiology showed that those who ate the most eggs had a higher risk of cardiovascular disease. Dr. Spence and Dr. Davon received fees from several pharmaceutical companies that sell anti-cholesterol medication. Dr. Daviston also had support from Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and Merck.
Another study by JAMA, Dr. Wilkins reported receiving consultation fees from NGM Biopharmaceuticals. Dr. Men reported receiving research support from various big pharma companies and is on their advisory board as well.
So unfortunately, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine is putting out doubts about the health of eating any animal products. They are a plant-based physician group, but their membership really is only 5% physicians. Honestly, I think it's really, really bad for someone to put out information that's just a lie to scare people into not eating eggs.
I know the news does it all the time; they'll put these little doubts in people's minds, and it's very difficult for most people, the general public, to evaluate that data themselves. So they depend on someone else who's responsible to do it for them. I think this is just really a smear campaign on eggs.
Eggs have gotten a bad rap for many years, but the egg is a very interesting protein that I want to share right now. Some additional information just to give you some factual information about what's in an egg.
First of all, an egg yolk is not a developing chicken; it's the nutrition for that chicken. The egg yolk is probably one of the most nutrient-dense multivitamin, mineral, phytonutrient substances that you can consume, based on some additional protein around that egg yolk.
The egg is almost complete with about every single nutrient except vitamin C, but it's loaded with vitamins B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B9, and B12. It's one of the best sources of vitamin A, and I'm talking about the active form of vitamin A called retinol. You cannot get retinol from carrots.
In carrots, you have the precursor beta-carotene that is supposed to convert into the active form of vitamin A. You have to get it from animal sources or egg sources. Vitamin A is crucial for your eyes, for your immune system, for your skin, especially the inside of your skin: the sinuses, the throat, the lungs, even the colon. Anything internal skin is supported by vitamin A.
Of course, liver has the highest amount of vitamin A, but egg yolk is right up there as well. It has vitamin E that, by the way, supports the inside of your heart. Eating eggs is going to help your cardiovascular system; it's going to support the inside layer of the arteries because it has vitamin E, as well as vitamin K2, which is really important in removing the excess calcium in the arteries.
It keeps the calcium out of the soft tissues of the body. It has vitamin D; very few foods have vitamin D, but egg yolks have it. Of course, I'm talking about an egg that comes from a pasture-raised, healthy chicken. I'm not talking about this chicken that's in a cage their whole life.
But the egg is the best source of protein, the most quality source of protein behind breast milk. It's a super bioavailable source of amino acids. It also is the food that has the second highest amount of choline behind liver, and choline is important in reducing fat off your liver.
It's important in supporting the brain because it makes this neurotransmitter called acetylcholine to help your memory. It also has minerals: potassium, magnesium, selenium. It also has omega-3 fatty acids as well, which are good for the heart.
Another thing that it can do is it can increase the particle size of your LDL. What does that mean? There are two types of LDL: you have the small dense particle size, which is the one that kind of invades the arteries, creates more problems, and creates more inflammation.
But then you have something else that's bigger called a large buoyant particle size, and that's the one that is not pathogenic. Also, eggs can help reduce your insulin resistance. Think about the carb level in eggs; there's not a lot of carbs in eggs, so it's a perfect keto combination of protein and fat and nutrition.
It also can increase HDL. It has lutein and zeaxanthin. What are those? Those are carotenoids. You see those in vegetables, but the bioavailability in vegetables doesn't even compare to the bioavailability from an egg.
So these two carotenoids protect not just the eye because they're good for the eye against things like macular degeneration and cataracts, but they also protect the endothelial tissue inside your arteries.
So no, eggs don't cause heart problems; they help heart problems. Consuming eggs is an excellent idea. The next time you hear some bad news about eggs, take a look at the study. Make sure it's not an observational study, and make sure that the source of the study doesn't have a conflict of interest.
But the egg can be a super heart-healthy food to consume. Now, if you haven't seen my new resource page on my website, drberg.com, where I have a lot of very cool downloads, go there now and check out all the one-page summaries I have on various topics. I think you'll really enjoy them.