Abstract
Re-examination of the evidence for the relationship between dietary cholesterol in eggs, blood cholesterol and heart disease has clarified that the effects of the dietary cholesterol on LDL do not translate into increased risk of developing coronary heart disease for the majority of the population. The resultant lifting of the restriction on the consumption of eggs should help to persuade healthy but limited egg-eaters to put aside their misconceptions and increase general access to the nutritional benefits of eggs. Unfortunately, food policy is not always driven by the weight of scientific evidence, but by the cost-effectiveness of a practice or behaviour. To this end, a recent study performed an analysis of the economic impact of eggs in terms of the risks and benefits of eating eggs as compared to the costs of developing disease from not eating eggs (17). The conclusion was that limiting egg consumption was not cost effective from a societal perspective and that removing the nutritional benefits of eggs could lead to other, less affordable, disease outcomes. Let's hope that we are all right.