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A couple months ago, I consumed around 8 eggs a day for several months. This was largely based on research from the Paleo Diet arguing that saturated fats and cholesterol wasn't nearly as bad for you as nutritional advice would suggest.

A study, however, came out recently claiming that eggs were as bad for you as smoking:

From Prevention.com

Researchers from Western University in Canada examined over 1,200 men and women to come to the conclusion that regularly eating egg yolks was two-thirds as bad as smoking when it comes to carotid plaque in the arteries, a known risk factor for stroke and heart attack.

Some aggressive lines from a paper by J.D. Spence, D.J. Jenkins, J. Davignon, "Dietary cholesterol and egg yolks: not for patients at risk of vascular disease", Can J Cardiol, 26 (2010), pp. e336–e339

Although some studies showed no harm from consumption of eggs in healthy people, this outcome may have been due to lack of power to detect clinically relevant increases in a low-risk population. Moreover, the same studies showed that among participants who became diabetic during observation, consumption of one egg a day doubled their risk compared with less than one egg a week.

What does the research say on the health impacts of consuming several eggs a day?

Parseltongue
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    possible duplicate of [Is eating eggs bad for me?](http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/1186/is-eating-eggs-bad-for-me) – Wertilq Jun 28 '13 at 14:17
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    @Wertilq: At least this one shows research effort. – Aeronth Jun 28 '13 at 14:27
  • @Wertliq, I agree with Aeronth, so I don't vote to close. In fact, at this point, it would be better closing the original question you linked, rather than this one :^) – Carlo Alterego Jun 28 '13 at 21:36
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    Quibble: "two-thirds as bad as smoking when it comes to carotid plaque in the arteries" is *nothing* like "as bad for you as smoking"... Comparing eggs to just one of the dozens of effects of smoking screams of the press-release equivalent of clickbait: by the same logic we could compare eating salt to falling out of a plane because they both increase blood pressure... – user56reinstatemonica8 Jul 18 '17 at 14:31
  • Stop fretting, and for heavens sake, stop believing nonsense like paleo-diets and whatnot. http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/you-cant-trust-what-you-read-about-nutrition/ Eat what makes you feel well and what tastes well, but show moderation. – Stian Jul 19 '17 at 18:38
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    Do you have regular or at least annual primary doctor check ups? Have you had your cholesterol checked lately? What is your age and sex? Do you drink much red wine? Do you exercise routinely cardio type exercise and if so how often and for how long on average guessing? Do you smoke cigarettes or marijuana or do any other type of drugs (street or legal)? Do you have any health conditions going on with you already e.g. high blood pressure, etc.? Give people some personal detail to work on for such a personal question about you eating all these eggs for months. All these questions matter. – The Milk Man Jul 20 '17 at 05:32
  • Next time try it with Big Mac's from – The Milk Man Jul 20 '17 at 05:35
  • I have to (unfortunately) agree with @McDonald's here (the first comment, anyway). We need more information. I have been looking through PubMed, but almost all of the studies are for very particular cohorts. For instance, there are studies about cholesterol effects of egg consumption for people >50 yrs old. Is this you? There are studies for Korean adult men, is this you? Health effects of certain food are quite difficult to prove, and the good studies are almost always more specific. – Microscone Jul 21 '17 at 14:13
  • @McDonald's point is almost completely trivial. Obviously there is massive variability within a given population and between populations; the nature of his questions could equally apply to any ecological study (is gun ownership associated with violence? Well, are you in a low-crime neighborhood? Do you have a license for the gun? Are you trained? And so on). I'm obviously asking about average effects across populations conditional on relevant covariates. Namely, on average, what are the health impacts of consuming large numbers of eggs. – Parseltongue Aug 03 '17 at 15:55

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There isn't a lot I could find on this but one paper stood out:

Egg consumption and risk of coronary heart disease and stroke: dose-response meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies

Their conclusion was (emphasis mine):

Higher consumption of eggs (up to one egg per day) is not associated with increased risk of coronary heart disease or stroke. The increased risk of coronary heart disease among diabetic patients and reduced risk of hemorrhagic stroke associated with higher egg consumption in subgroup analyses warrant further studies.

This suggests that whilst an egg a day isn't bad for those with normal metabolisms there are concerns for those who are more sensitive and, as such, increasing the amount (to your 8 a day perhaps) could put the strain on a normal metabolism that a single egg does.

Ludo
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