Egg consumption and health outcomes in people
What it found
Egg intake was weakly linked to higher LDL and total cholesterol and to a higher risk of heart failure and cancer death, and weakly linked to better HDL cholesterol and growth in children.
The authors say the evidence is too weak to discourage eating eggs.
What they found
Studies in people
Cholesterol levels
Egg intake was weakly linked to higher LDL cholesterol, total cholesterol and apolipoprotein B-100. It was also weakly linked to higher HDL cholesterol and apolipoprotein A1.
Heart failure risk
Egg intake was weakly linked to a higher risk of heart failure. The authors rate the level of evidence as very weak.
Cancer mortality
Egg intake was weakly linked to a higher risk of cancer death. The authors rate the level of evidence as very weak.
Child growth
Egg intake was weakly linked to improvements in growth parameters in children.
Heart and death outcomes
No link was found between high compared with low egg consumption and all cardiovascular outcomes or all-cause mortality risk.
Other findings
Evidence quality
The overall quality of the studies was critically low, and the evidence was very weak for all the significant links found.
What the authors conclude
“Due to the critically low strength of studies, insufficient evidence is available to discourage egg consumption, suggesting eggs can be part of a healthy diet.”
Also in their conclusions
- They conclude that due to the critically low strength of studies, insufficient evidence is available to discourage egg consumption.
- They suggest eggs can be part of a healthy diet.
How it was done
The authors wanted to evaluate the effect of egg consumption on health outcomes.
They searched for meta-analyses of observational or intervention studies on egg consumption and health, published since January 2020. They included fourteen meta-analyses, ten observational and four intervention studies, and rated study quality and strength of evidence.
What it can’t tell you
- We summarised it from the abstract only.
- The studies looked at links between egg intake and health outcomes over time, so they cannot prove that eating eggs causes these outcomes.
- The evidence was rated very weak, so the links found may change with better research.
Who paid
- Conflicts
- Conflict of interest The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
- Authors work at
- University of Genoa, Italy; University of Pavia, Italy; National Center for the Development of New Technologies in Agriculture (Agritech), Italy
The paper
- Title
- Effect of egg consumption on health outcomes: An updated umbrella review of systematic reviews and meta-analysis of observational and intervention studies
- 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
- Abstract only
- Cite
- Formisano E, Lopes Neri LC, Caffa I, et al (2025). Effect of egg consumption on health outcomes: An updated umbrella review of systematic reviews and meta-analysis of observational and intervention studies. Nutrition, metabolism, and cardiovascular diseases. doi:10.1016/j.numecd.2025.103849PubMed 39934049DOI
Summary written 26 Sep 2026. Check it against the paper before it changes what you eat. How we summarise papers · Report an error