Eating too many eggs may raise your risk of type 2 diabetes

Nov 24 2008

According to new research from the U.S. eating too many eggs may increase the risk of a person developing type 2 diabetes - and this applies to both men and women.

The researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School examined data from two completed randomized trials - the Physicians' Health Study I (1982 to 2007) which involved 20,703 men and the Women's Health Study (1992-2007) which involved 36,295 women - and found that a high consumption of eggs led to a high risk of type 2 diabetes.

The researchers say other studies have produced limited and inconsistent findings on the relationship between dietary cholesterol or egg consumption and fasting glucose and no previous research has examined the association between egg consumption and type 2 diabetes.

The researchers led by Dr. Djoussé set out to examine the relationship between egg intake and the risk of type 2 diabetes in the two large prospective groups and found that 1,921 men and 2,112 women who were followed up for 20 years and 12 years respectively, developed type 2 diabetes.

Compared with no egg consumption, multivariable adjusted hazard ratios (95% Confidence Interval [CI]) for type 2 diabetes were 1.09 (0.87-1.37), 1.09 (0.88-1.34), 1.18 (0.95-1.45), 1.46 (1.14-1.86), and 1.58 (1.25-2.01) for consumption of <1, 1, 2-4, 5-6, and 7+ eggs/week, respectively, in men. Corresponding multivariable hazard ratios (95% CI) for women were 1.06 (0.92-1.22), 0.97 (0.83-1.12), 1.19 (1.03-1.38), 1.18 (0.88-1.58), and 1.77 (1.28-2.43), respectively.

The researchers say this suggests that high levels of egg consumption (daily) are associated with an increased risk of type 2 diabetes in men and women.

The research is published in the November 18th issue of Diabetes Care.