A new subscriber asked me about eggs and cholesterol. Few topics in nutrition have caused more confusion for longer. For fifty years patients were told to limit eggs. In 2019 a headline said eggs raise your risk of heart disease by 17%. By 2025 the headlines said the cholesterol scare was a myth.
I’ve written the whole story up as a case study on the site: Dietary Cholesterol and Heart Disease. It starts with why the cholesterol you eat is not the cholesterol in your blood test. Then it takes four claims apart. The 17% headline leaves out how many people it affects. The studies behind it compare egg eaters with other people and can’t separate the egg from the eater. The 300 mg limit has no known source. And a 2025 trial said to clear eggs was too small to settle anything.
The takeaway
Eating eggs may raise LDL a little, but not at a level shown to affect your health. No one has tested whether cutting eggs prevents heart disease. The limits you’ve heard, 300 mg or one egg a day, don’t come from any line in the data.
The numbers and every source are in the case study: Dietary Cholesterol and Heart Disease at healthy-skepticism.com.
Thanks to the subscriber who suggested this topic.