Consumption of eggs and its effect on the body
"The myth"
It's usual for me to go to egg shops and ask for 6-7 boiled eggs in the night to keep them with me for taking before the sleep. Though, sometimes it is bit annoying to face some people who usually warn me about the overdose of egg consumption as a health hazard. While, at times, some of them ask me about risks of taking a large number of eggs each day. Therefore, I am writing this article to eradicate the bad image of eggs.
What is an egg?
Eggs are laid by female individuals of many different species, including birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. These have been eaten by humans for thousands of years but Chicken eggs are most favored option to eat. Beside of egg shell and membrane, an egg has two main consumable constituents 1. albumin (egg white) 2. Egg yolk
Biomolecules and Nutrients What is an egg?
Eggs contain many biomolecules in which most of them are necessary for desirable nutrition such as Proteins, lipids, carbohydrates, and vitamins.
Molecular constituents of eggs are given in the table in supplementary at the end of the post.
Eggs or dietary villain?
1. The Fats
As the table (supplementary) suggests that eggs contain a high amount of fats and cholesterol. One large egg caters 5g of lipids, in which saturated fats contribute to 1.5g. An egg also contains approximately 200 milligrams of cholesterol, which is a fat-like substance found only in animal foods. Saturated fats and cholesterol in the body are found to be associated with raising blood cholesterol and increasing the risk of heart disease, health experts once recommended limiting eggs in the diet to fewer than four a week.
2. TMAO
Trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO) is the organic compound. it is a product of the oxidation of trimethylamine, a common metabolite in animals. It is an osmolyte found in saltwater fish, sharks, rays, mollusks, and crustaceans. It is a protein stabilizer that may serve to counteract urea, the major osmolyte of sharks, skates and rays, however, it also present in the ureotelic animal in which amount of urea is higher, such as mammals (humans).
In some of the studies, it is found related to heart diseases. Other studies suggested that choline and carnitine which are converted to TMAO by intestinal bacteria which can increase cardiovascular diseases (CVD) same group stated that eggs contain Lecithin which is broken down to choline and if the person have these kinds of bacteria in intestine the choline will be converted to TMAO and the person is at risk now.
3. The Wikipedia and the media
Most of the online population of the world search about their confusion on google and Wikipedia. I am not sure about other sources on google but the people who directly prefer Wikipedia because of its good referencing and organized structure keeps blind faith on it, as a researcher, there are numerous times I have found that the information written on Wikipedia may not be authenticated and not always correct. Now if you go to Wikipedia and search for "eggs as a food", you will find that there is almost everything written on it, negatively representing the eggs as a cardiovascular health risk, while I firmly believe that "eggs may somewhat look like Voldemort but actually they are not".
Media is the main source of knowledge for ordinary people, where media either misinterpret or to get more attention of people somewhat changes the statements and conclusion of an article to their own desire. This results in misleading of information to the people.
4. Confounding Research
Research is the key to any scientific knowledge, on the evidence of experimental experiences of researchers we understand the applications, advantages, and discommodes of different subjects. Therefore, its duty of the researcher to harness their investigations and observations in, as controlled environment as possible to negate the different factors which can affect the studies and hinder the results. Moreover, This can provide significance to their studies either. However, in the case of eggs, there are so many factors which affect the blood cholesterol level as well as the probability of happening of event of cardiovascular disease (CVD), such as fats in their diet, type of lipids taken, Alcohol consumption, smoking, girth size, BMI, age, sex, social class, dietary variables, physiological problems. In many of the studies were on diabetes or CVD there are different factors were used and older age was much of concern in them. Furthermore, all the studies which show eggs are bad for CVD and diabetes, do not consist control data for smoking/alcohol consumption and type fat diet taken beside of eggs. Interestingly, all the studies which have many controlled combined-factor do not show any significant difference to conclude as the egg is bad for the heart. Similarly, there is no study which shows eggs are bad in younger individuals or people with regular physical activities or in athletes.
Above I have discussed about TMAO but take a look at this research: there is article which says eggs are bad “Eggs, Too, May Provoke Bacteria to Raise Heart Risk” (2013) and for red meat “Culprit in Heart Disease Goes Beyond Meat's Fat” (2013) Even more perplexing was another study "L-carnitine significantly improves patient outcomes following heart attack" (2013), in this study researchers, stated that the same carnitine is known to help people recover from heart attacks. Leaving one in the confusing position, were one to formulate their meal plan from these articles, of avoiding red meat until you had a heart attack, and then eating more of it?
By studying all of it I felt much confounding about the villainous image of the egg. However, after further deep analysis I reached to a conclusion that there are not enough pieces of evidence to consider eggs for causing hazardous effects to a healthy, young and athletic individuals.
Reality of An egg
After studying a huge amount of articles I learned that reality of egg is far from what presented to our society. It has many advantages specifically for athletes, it is one of the healthiest food to eat.
Let's discuss some specialties of eggs.
1. The cholesterol
Cholesterol in egg yolk is a free cholesterol which either can bind with saturated trans fat or with polyunsaturated fatty acids. It is found that consuming eggs affect least the blood cholesterol level, further some recent research shown that whole eggs can increase the HDL cholesterol (good cholesterol). Thus, in reality, eggs are not bad for cholesterol metabolism for humans.
2. Cholesterol in sports
If we talk about the role of cholesterol for athletes, then we should know that cholesterol is an important precursor compound for sexual hormonal system i.e. Testosterone for males and estrogen in females. Both of the hormones are important for athletes. You must have listened about players taking steroids for their better performance, similarly, in bodybuilding taking steroids, testosterone booster, and direct testosterone is common. However, eggs can function as a good source of cholesterol for the hormonal balance, good sports performance as well as in muscle building without any drug abuse.
3. Egg as a protein source
These days almost everyone knows that eggs are a good protein source. Nevertheless, it's rare that people know that the rate of absorption of egg protein is higher than any other natural source of protein, thus bioavailability of this protein is higher than any other natural food protein, furthermore for vegans, plant proteins are least bioavailable. Therefore, most of the whey proteins companies use egg white as a source of whey protein.
4. Vitamin source
Eggs are a great source of many different vitamins such as vitamin D, vitamin B, vitamin E. Vitamin D is a prime vitamin for calcium metabolism of the body and most of the Indian population is highly deficient in this vitamin. Vitamin E is important for hair, skin and good wound healing (healing an important factor for all the athletes).
Summary
- Eggs are misinterpreted food all the animal kingdom including humans are eating eggs since thousand of years.
- Eggs can increase TMAO but that is already present in the ureotelic and aminotalic animals.
- Eggs can increase L-carnitine and choline both have been studied to be involved in CVD, although, L-carnitine is been studied to increase the performance muscles of athletes (it is present in muscles).
- Choline is said to be bad for the heart but it also found to help the CVD patient in their improvement.
- Egg's cholesterol helps in increasing HDL-Cholesterol.
- Egg's cholesterol helps in sexual hormonal balance, increases T-levels in men and help in muscle building and in healing their injuries faster as well.
- Since egg protein is highly bioavailable, it reaches muscle tissues faster.
- Eggs are one of the good sources of vitamins.
Bibliography
- Are Eggs Bad For You? Egg Cholesterol Myths, How the Body Works, Clinical Nutritionhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmIriClTA8E
- eggs-too-may-provoke-bacteria-to-raise-heart-risk
- health/study-points-to-new-culprit-in-heart-disease
- L-carnitine significantly improves patient outcomes following heart attack
- l-carnitine-is-it-good-or-bad-for-your-heart
- Egg Consumption and Risk of Type 2 Diabetes in Men and Women
- http://www.drdeborahmd.com/what-tmao-anyway
- Regular egg consumption does not increase the risk of stroke and cardiovascular diseases.
- Egg consumption and CHD and stroke mortality: a prospective study of US adults
- Egg consumption and risk of cardiovascular disease in the SUN Project (Nature)
- high-blood-cholesterol is not related with eggs
Supplementary
Table showing biomolecular constituents of eggs per 100gm (2 eggs = 100gm)| Energy | 647 kJ (155 kcal) |
|---|---|
Carbohydrates
|
1.12 g
|
Fat (lipids)
|
10.6 g
|
Protein
|
12.6 g
|
| Vitamins | |
| Vitamin A equiv. |
(19%)
149 μg |
| Thiamine (B1) |
(6%)
0.066 mg |
| Riboflavin (B2) |
(42%)
0.5 mg |
| Niacin (B3) |
(0%)
0.064 mg |
| Pantothenic acid (B5) |
(28%)
1.4 mg |
| Vitamin B6 |
(9%)
0.121 mg |
| Folate (B9) |
(11%)
44 μg |
| Vitamin B12 |
(46%)
1.11 μg |
| Choline |
(60%)
294 mg |
| Vitamin D |
(15%)
87 IU |
| Vitamin E |
(7%)
1.03 mg |
| Vitamin K |
(0%)
0.3 μg |
| Minerals | |
| Calcium |
(5%)
50 mg |
| Iron |
(9%)
1.2 mg |
| Magnesium |
(3%)
10 mg |
| Phosphorus |
(25%)
172 mg |
| Potassium |
(3%)
126 mg |
| Sodium |
(8%)
124 mg |
| Zinc |
(11%)
1.0 mg |
| Other constituents | |
| Water | 75 g |
| Cholesterol | 373 mg |
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