Eggs will kill ya dead!

Today I happened to catch on the local news a story about how eggs are going to kill ya! They're going to kill ya dead, just like cigarette smoking! I just had to go find this study. Luckily the school I teach at subscribes to the journal it was in.

I have some huge problems with this study. The first is, it's not a random clinical trial. They only surveyed (yeah, nice waste of money) people coming to a vascular prevention clinic. Uh, is it just me, or do you think that people who are unhealthy, sick, and/or have a family history of illness are the most likely to go to a clinic like that?

Looking at Table 1 in the study, mean Triglycerides are high and so is BMI. So a lot of the participants are overweight. I wonder if there are any normal, healthy people in this survey? There's also a few diabetics thrown in for good measure. I didn't see where they controlled for that. But wait, because it gets better.

Table 1, click for larger version

Looking at Table 2, I almost fell out of my chair. From laughing. The people who ate the least eggs, <50 in "egg years", were the youngest. Their ages were 55.70 +/- 17.03 at first visit, so some of them were as young as 38.67 years. Now as the egg consumption goes up, so do the ages.  The people who ate the most eggs were much older. Their ages were 69.77 +/-11.38 at first visit. The youngest in the high consumption group was 58.39. That seems like some underhanded chicanery if you ask me!

Table 2, click for larger version

Of course the older people are going to have more instances of heart disease and thicker arteries too because of their age. They even state that in the article, that the older people have more plaque. Oh, but wait! The study says they "adjusted" for age. Why instead of poking around with numbers, actually study the same age groups? Or would that be because there wouldn't be any correlation? (Never mind causation.)

One could easily draw the conclusion that eggs have nothing to do with the thickness of the plaque, but with age. I could just as easily draw the conclusion that as you get older you eat more eggs. That's valid right? Or maybe the more eggs you eat, the older you get. Maybe if you never eat eggs you'll never get old? I'm screwed in that case!

It's interesting that they say that there were 2831 patients with data on egg yolk consumption, but only 1231 were used for various reasons. I'm sure those reasons were all good right, like not anything to do with throwing out data we didn't like, right? Right?

Also of interest, is that they found that fasting cholesterol, BMI, Triglycerides, HDL cholesterol and LDL cholesterol were not significant predictors of the thickness of plaque. Just egg yolks! 


In my humble opinion, considering that the sample was unbalanced, not random in the least and that more than half of the data they had access to was thrown out, that this amounts to someone with an agenda, with an axe to grind. Because if you really wanted to help people, and you really wanted to find out what was causing heart disease, you wouldn't have such poor research methods. However, if what you really want is to push an agenda, you won't care about data or ethics or anything else. You won't care if you kill people, so long as yours is the voice that is heard, so long as yours is the message that is received. Because diet is a religion to quite a few people out there, on all sides.

Just so you know, I'm my own experiment in this case. I eat at least three eggs almost every day. If I drop dead of heart disease, well, we won't know if it was the eggs that caused it, or my propensity for fountain diet cokes :P

The Spam that keeps on giving

The Eat Right America people have been emailing me everyday about 2pm to let me know that I should start their vegan-wanna-be diet. I wasn't going to write any more about this, but as I was browsing their site, I just had to talk about what they say about diabetes.

"When we have more fat on the body, more insulin is required to deliver glucose to the cells as the coating of fat around them makes it difficult for the hormone insulin to transport the glucose into the cells." (emphasis mine)

Coating of fat around the cells makes it difficult for insulin to work? Wow. These people should contact all those biochemists who have struggled to find a concrete and indisputable reason for insulin resistance and let them know this. They also might want to let them know that fat people have their cells bathed in fat too. The year 1920 called. It wants it's understanding of biochemistry back.

There's only one problem with their crappy logic, besides the fact that it has nothing to do with biochemistry. Obese people are not the only ones who are insulin resistant, as type 2 diabetes strikes normal weight individuals as well. In fact, it seems that the inability to become fat might cause type 2 diabetes in normal weight individuals, as in the case of Pima men.

"Even five pounds of excess fat on one’s frame can inhibit the ability of insulin to carry glucose into our cells. Twenty pounds of extra fat and the pancreas may be forced to produce twice as much insulin to do the necessary job."

Citation? Really? I call shenanigans.

"The vast majority of diabetics who adopt a high-nutrient diet [as in their vegan diet] and exercise regularly become thin and non–diabetic. They are able to gradually discontinue their insulin and eventually other medications. They simply get well."

Pictures, or it didn't happen. I'd like to know who they're talking about. I really like how they have absolutely no citations whatsoever to any study anywhere.

And then I clicked on the Heart Disease tab.

"There is irrefutable scientific evidence that high cholesterol levels are associated with increased risk of Coronary Heart Disease (CHD). " (emphasis mine)

Liars. But we knew that.

"It has become increasingly evident that the direct relationship of cholesterol level to risk of heart attack exists at all but the very lowest cholesterol levels."

Yeah, people with very low cholesterol die of suicide and are violent, and if that doesn't' kill them they have a much higher incidence of cancer. Read Dr. Uffe Ravnskov.

"The new recommendations of medical authorities are to maintain your LDL cholesterol below 100. Less than 10% of the adult population in America actually has the cholesterol levels that meet these newest recommendations."

That's because they've lowered the recommendation because big Pharma wants us all on statins.

I'm kinda annoyed that they keep emailing me. I suppose that I could remove myself from their mailing list, but then I wouldn't have stupidity-in-my-inbox to write about. I'd have to go looking for articles at that point!