Health Advice: Are Eggs Good for You, the Color Red and Addictive Exercise

By The Mother Earth News Editors
Published on May 1, 1988
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PHOTO: KATHRYN KLEINMAN
Eggs may have gotten a bad rap from the cholesterol counters. Eating eggs, for example, doesn't always increase blood cholesterol, and taking them away doesn't always lower it.

The To Your Health column covers health advice topics on how eggs affect your health, how the color red may increase your strength and quickness, and how to tell if you are addicted to exercise.

Health Advice: Are Eggs Good for You, the Color Red and Addictive Exercise

When it concerns the fitness of body, mind or spirit, the editors of American Health are there, staying on top of up-to-date medical research, providing health advice, separating fad from fact and helping you preserve and improve life’s most precious gift–your good health. Here are just a few items culled from recent and upcoming issues.

Are Eggs Okay? To Eat or Not to Eat

Eggs are one of nature’s most economical and nutritious foods. At 80 calories, one egg has about as much fat as an ounce of mozzarella cheese–and egg fat is less saturated. It also provides six grams of high-quality protein (more than 10% of the daily requirement) and good amounts of vitamins A, D and B-12 and iron. But that same egg also provides about 275 milligrams of cholesterol, close to the 300 milligram limit recommended by the American Heart Association for an entire day. The concern is that eating too much cholesterol will raise blood cholesterol–a known risk factor for heart disease.

Recent research, however, suggests that the amount of cholesterol in the diet may be less important than the amount of total fat and saturated fat. Eating eggs, for example, doesn’t always increase blood cholesterol, and taking them away doesn’t always lower it. Many people compensate for added cholesterol in the diet by making less in their bodies. (About four-fifths of the cholesterol in our blood is made internally, and only about a quarter to a third of healthy people respond to excess dietary cholesterol with increased levels in the blood.)

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