July 28, 2004 -- Is the all-clear on eggs all over? A newJapanese study breaks through the promising news on eggs. Eating eggs every dayincreases a woman's risk of dying young, it says.

The report appears this month in the American Journal ofClinical Nutrition. The 14-year study shows that women who ate one egg aday were more likely to die during those 14 years compared with women who ateone to two eggs a week.

It stirs up an old argument -- whether the egg yolk's 200 mg ofcholesterol contributes to health problems like heart disease.

Two years ago, a study published by the American HeartAssociation found that up to one egg per day did not have a significantimpact on risk for heart disease or stroke. The AHA now recommends eating lessthan 300 mg per day on average. People with high cholesterol should eat no morethan 200 mg per day.

But that's not all: Scientists have discovered something calledphosphatidylcholine, or PC, a compound found naturally in eggs. It seems toblock an egg's cholesterol from entering the bloodstream. And just this month,a group of Connecticut researchers found that adding up to three eggs per dayraises some types of LDL "bad" cholesterol -- but not the type of LDLknown to clog arteries.

Yet eggs are good food -- a highly digestible, excellent sourceof protein, lutein (a powerful antioxidant), vitamins A, E, and B, andfolate.

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Cracking the Data

The study involved more than 9,000 Japanese men and women whoseegg consumption, cholesterol levels, and deaths were documented from 1980 to1994.

Women who ate an egg daily were more likely to die early thanwomen who ate one or two eggs per week. Total cholesterol level among thefrequent egg eaters was on average 6 mg/dL higher than less-frequent eggeaters.

For men, frequent egg eating seemed to pose no problems tototal cholesterol. Fewer men ate eggs every day, for one thing. And men whowere daily egg eaters had no higher risk of early death than women.

How could this be? Possibly because this group of Japanese mengot their total daily cholesterol from a wider variety of sources -- more sothan the women did, writes lead researcher Yasuyuki Nakamura, MD, acardiologist with the Shiga University of Medical Science in Japan.

One limitation of this study: The researchers did not documenttotal calorie or cholesterol intake, or saturated or polyunsaturated fatintake.

The better odds for infrequent egg eaters may reflect a more"health-conscious" attitude that eventually results in better healthand longer life. But since equal numbers of smokers were found in both groupsof egg-eating women, that wasn't likely the case, writes Nakamura.