cole s. terrell

[rone]

As i enter fuddiduddihood (AKA my fourth decade of life), i've gained nearly 20 pounds in the last two years, and now i have high cholesterol (229 total, and "bad" cholesterol was high on its own, but the good/bad ratio was OK), which means cutting back on my profligate intake of sweet, delicious pork, as well as eggs (and ikkyu2 has made it even worse for me by pointing out that one egg yolk contains a week's worth of cholesterol). It should also mean i will start exercising, but who am i kidding? I'll just cut back on the bad stuff and eat Cheerios.

Comments

[fredfred.livejournal.com]

Eggs contain 250 mg cholesterol per.

Heart-healthy diets (like the American Heart Association's) recommend 200-300 mg of cholesterol per day.

Dunno where ikkyu2 is getting his figures, but that sez one egg max per day (averaged), depending on other sweet, sweet meats.

And some people don't even think that dietary cholesterol has much effect on blood cholesterol levels.

References:
http://www.ivillage.com/food/experts/nutrition/articles/0,5370,5344,00.html
http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=4547
http://www.newsday.com/features/food/ny-p2foodmain3212551apr09,0,1678702.story?coll=ny-features-headlines

[ikkyu2.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I appear to have spoken too soon. There's a huge egg lobby to pay for as much crap science as you like, which gives me caution when browsing a web page at Purdue University (http://ag.ansc.purdue.edu/ispa/news/Articles/eggcholest.html), for the love of Pete - need we even ask where their bias lies? Hit the MEMBERSHIP button on that page to see how you can join the International Poultry Society - but there's a pretty good study out there with 15000 subjects showing no relation between egg intake and blood cholesterol levels, and I remember the 1999 NEJM study about 7 eggs per week not raising the amount of stroke.

Your body needs about 2000-2500 mg of cholesterol a day, but can get 1825 mg or so of that from re-absorption of pre-used cholesterol. Cholesterol's in everything you eat - it's part of cell membranes - so eating an egg gives ya a real goose in the old cholesterol tank. It appears, however, that lecithin in eggs may reduce cholesterol absorption.