The study, supported by the American Egg Board, measured the influence of a high-cholesterol diet, based on daily egg consumption, on the potential to lead to heart disease, of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) particles.

Researchers have recently found that LDL cholesterol has many fractions, with varying degrees of risk for cardiovascular disease. Prior to this, total LDL-cholesterol was measured to gauge risk for heart disease.

We found that the dietary cholesterol in eggs does raise the LDL-1 and LDL-2 fractions but it does not impact the small, dense LDL-3 through LDL-7 particles that are the greatest threat for cardiovascular disease risk, explained Maria Luz Fernandez from the University of Connecticut.

We also found that egg cholesterol did not impact the small, dense LDL particles among a sub-set of participants who were genetically predisposed to being most sensitive to dietary cholesterol, she added.

Egg producers in the US and UK have been given a boost in recent months by consumers following the protein-rich Atkins diet. The British egg industry saw its first sustained sales rise in many years last year, with eggs up 4 per cent in the first seven months of 2003, helped by consumer education campaigns to try to dispel myths that consumers should not eat more than three eggs per week.

The Connecticut team said they randomly assigned 27 pre-menopausal women and 25 men to either an egg (resulting in 640 mg of additional dietary cholesterol) or a placebo diet for 30 days, followed by a three-week washout period.

The larger LDL-1 subclass was greater in hyper-responders, those more sensitive to dietary cholesterol, following egg intake, showing that the consumption of a high-cholesterol diet does not negatively influence the LDL particle.

The American Egg Board said the study, alongside others, shows that strategies to control blood lipids that increase risk for cardiovascular disease, the world's biggest killer, should focus on a diet low in saturated and trans fatty acids, rather than on dietary cholesterol.

*Metabolism, June 2004 (Vol 5, issue 6, pp 823-830)

Eggs And Breast Cancer : Eggs can Actually Reduce Breast Cancer

For years, the mainstream has demonized eggs as though they were only slightly less harmful than rat poison! Why? Because of the erroneous belief spurred by the carbohydrate is good and fat is bad notions of conventional medicine that eggs increase cholesterol and contribute to heart disease.

Lately, however, the mainstream has begun to lighten up on eggs and even to endorse them, in guarded ways. For instance, an MSNBC on-line article cited a study of over 120,000 women that revealed a measurable correlation between an egg-rich diet during adolescence and a reduced risk of breast cancer. It seems that eating at least three eggs weekly as a teenager decreased incidence of breast cancer later in life by 18 percent!

*www.msnbc.com