Health security

Cholesterol in eggs may not hurt heart health

The once-maligned egg may not be a heartbreaker after all, new research suggests.

Finnish researchers say that even carriers of a gene -- called APOE4 -- that increases sensitivity to dietary cholesterol don't seem to have anything to fear when it comes to the impact of eggs, or any other dietary cholesterol, on heart health.

The findings followed the 20-year plus tracking of dietary habits among more than 1,000 middle-aged Finnish men. All were heart healthy at the study's start, and about a third carried the APOE4 gene, the researchers said.

"It is quite well known that dietary cholesterol intake has quite a modest impact on blood cholesterol levels, and cholesterol or egg intakes have not been associated with a higher risk of heart disease in most studies," said study author Jyrki Virtanen. He is an adjunct professor in nutritional epidemiology with the University of Eastern Finland Institute of Public Health and Clinical Nutrition in Kuopio, Finland.