Eggs and heart disease risk in US adults
What it found
Eating up to one egg a day was not linked to heart disease or stroke in three large US studies of nurses and health professionals, and a combined analysis of many studies found the same overall.
In Asian studies, eating more eggs was linked to a slightly lower risk.
What they found
Studies in people
Heart disease overall
In the three US cohorts, people who ate at least one egg a day had about the same risk of heart disease as those who ate less than one egg a month. The combined analysis of many studies also found no link between eating one more egg a day and heart disease risk.
Heart disease and stroke
When heart disease and stroke were looked at separately, eating at least one egg a day was not linked to either one in the US cohorts. The combined analysis found similar results for both.
Asian compared with US
In the combined analysis, eating one more egg a day was linked to a slightly lower risk of heart disease in Asian studies, but not in US or European studies. The authors say this may be because of other lifestyle factors rather than eggs themselves.
Type 2 diabetes
In the combined analysis, people with type 2 diabetes who ate more eggs had a higher risk of heart disease, but the studies varied a lot. The US cohorts found no link in people with or without diabetes.
Replacing eggs
Swapping one egg a day for processed red meat, unprocessed red meat or full fat milk was linked to a higher risk of heart disease in a statistical model. Swapping eggs for fish, poultry, legumes, nuts, grains, potatoes, reduced fat milk, cheese or yogurt showed no link.
What the authors conclude
“Results from the three cohorts and from the updated meta-analysis show that moderate egg consumption (up to one egg per day) is not associated with cardiovascular disease risk overall, and is associated with potentially lower cardiovascular disease risk in Asian populations.”
Also in their conclusions
- They conclude that moderate egg consumption, up to one egg per day, is not associated with cardiovascular disease risk overall.
- They say that egg consumption seems to be associated with a slightly lower cardiovascular disease risk among Asian cohorts.
- They note that most participants in their US cohorts ate only one to less than five eggs per week, and this should be considered when interpreting the results.
How it was done
Past studies on whether eggs affect heart disease risk have given conflicting results, and the authors wanted to look at this again using repeated diet measurements over many years.
They followed 83 349 women, 90 214 women and 42 055 men in three US health professional cohorts for up to 32 years, checking their diets repeatedly. They also combined results from 28 prospective studies with 1 720 108 participants and 139 195 heart disease events.
What it can’t tell you
- These studies followed people over time, so they can show a link but cannot prove that eating eggs causes or prevents heart disease.
- The US cohorts were health professionals, so the results may not apply to everyone.
- The authors cannot rule out that other unmeasured factors affected the results.
Who paid
- Funding
- Funded by NHLBI NIH HHS; NIDDK NIH HHS; NCI NIH HHS; CIHR (from the PubMed record).
- Conflicts
- Competing interests: All authors have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form at www.icmje.org/coi_disclosure.pdf and declare: support from the National Institutes of Health and Canadian Institutes of Health Research for the submitted work; JPDC received speaker and consulting honorariums from the Dairy Farmers of Canada, outside the submitted work; YL received grants from California Walnut Commission, outside the submitted work; FBH received research support from the California Walnut Commission and honorariums for lectures from Metagenics and Standard Process and honorariums from Diet Quality Photo Navigation, outside the submitted work; no financial relationships with any organizations that might have an interest in the submitted work in the previous three years; no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work.
- Authors work at
- Harvard T H Chan School of Public Health, USA; Brigham and Women's Hospital, USA
The paper
- Title
- Egg consumption and risk of cardiovascular disease: three large prospective US cohort studies, systematic review, and updated meta-analysis
- Type
- Systematic review and meta-analysisThe authors follow a set, published method to find every relevant study, then combine the numbers from them into one result.
- Evidence
- Studies in people
- Summarised from
- Full text
- Cite
- Drouin-Chartier JP, Chen S, Li Y, et al (2020). Egg consumption and risk of cardiovascular disease: three large prospective US cohort studies, systematic review, and updated meta-analysis. BMJ (Clinical research ed.). doi:10.1136/bmj.m513Free full textPubMed 32132002DOI
Summary written 26 Sep 2026. Check it against the paper before it changes what you eat. How we summarise papers · Report an error