Egg consumption and heart disease in people at high cardiovascular risk
What it found
In older adults at high risk of heart problems, eating up to 4 eggs a week was not linked to more heart attacks or strokes.
This held true whether or not the participants had type 2 diabetes.
What they found
Studies in people
Overall egg intake and heart events
Across all 7216 participants, eating more eggs at the start of the study did not lead to more major heart events. A total of 342 people had a heart attack, stroke, or died from a heart cause during follow-up.
Eggs in people without diabetes
Among the 3689 people without diabetes, those eating more than 4 eggs a week had about the same rate of heart events as those eating fewer than 2 eggs a week.
Eggs in people with diabetes
Among the 3527 people with diabetes, those eating more than 4 eggs a week had a slightly higher rate of heart events than those eating fewer than 2. However, this difference could easily be due to chance.
Cumulative egg intake over time
When researchers added up egg intake measured every year, they still found no link between eating eggs and heart events. This was true for people with and without diabetes.
Very few heavy egg eaters
Only 3% of the group reported eating more than 4 eggs a week at the start. Because so few people ate that many eggs, it is harder to spot any real differences at higher amounts.
What the authors conclude
- They conclude that low to moderate egg eating was not linked to a higher risk of heart disease in older people at high cardiovascular risk, whether they had diabetes or not.
- They note that the overall relationship between eating eggs and heart disease remains unclear.
How it was done
Eggs contain a lot of cholesterol, so people with heart risks are often told to limit them. Some earlier research suggested eggs might raise heart disease risk only in people who have type 2 diabetes.
They followed 7216 people aged 55 to 80 in Spain for an average of 5.8 years. Everyone already had a high risk of heart problems, and about half had type 2 diabetes. Each year, participants filled out a food questionnaire to record how many eggs they ate, and researchers tracked heart attacks, strokes, and deaths from heart causes.
What it can’t tell you
- This study followed people over time rather than assigning their diets, so it can show links but cannot prove that eggs caused or prevented heart events.
- Only 3% of participants ate more than 4 eggs a week, so the results cannot show what happens when people eat large amounts of eggs regularly.
- Everyone in the study was older and already at high risk of heart problems, so these findings may not apply to younger or lower-risk shoppers.
Who paid
- Authors work at
- University of Navarra-School of Medicine, Spain; Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII), Spain; Navarra Institute for Health Research (IdiSNA), Spain
The paper
- Title
- Egg consumption and cardiovascular disease according to diabetic status: The PREDIMED study
- Type
- Study
- Evidence
- Studies in people
- Summarised from
- Full text
- Cite
- Díez-Espino J, Basterra-Gortari FJ, Salas-Salvadó J, et al (2017). Egg consumption and cardiovascular disease according to diabetic status: The PREDIMED study. Clinical nutrition (Edinburgh, Scotland). doi:10.1016/j.clnu.2016.06.009Free full textPubMed 27448949DOI
Summary written 30 Sep 2026. Check it against the paper before it changes what you eat. How we summarise papers · Report an error