Are Eggs OK — or Not?

Updated July 2026

If you grew up fearful of eggs, full of cholesterol and saturated fat, a supposed cause of heart disease, you are not alone. But an egg also delivers about 6 grams of complete protein, plenty of B vitamins, zinc, and choline, all for around 75 calories, along with some omega-3 fatty acids, calcium, and antioxidants. So which is it? Are eggs good for you or bad for you? The honest answer is that they sit closer to neutral than either camp claims, and the details are worth understanding.

Do the eggs you eat raise your cholesterol?

Less than we used to think. A large egg carries about 180 mg of cholesterol. Dietary guidelines once advised capping cholesterol at 300 mg a day, or 200 mg if you already had heart disease, but that limit is gone, with no specific ceiling on cholesterol intake in the current guidelines. The reason for the change is that most of the cholesterol circulating in your blood is manufactured by your liver, not eaten. The relationship between food and blood cholesterol turns out to depend far more on your intake of saturated and trans fats, and on simple and processed carbohydrates, than on cholesterol itself, a point reinforced by recent randomized research showing saturated fat raises LDL substantially more than dietary cholesterol does. That does not make eggs a free-for-all. It means the overall quality and quantity of your diet matters far more than the level of any single nutrient.

What about the saturated fat in eggs?

There is surprisingly little. A diet low in saturated fat with no trans fat has clear cardiovascular benefits, and strict vegan diets that cut both have even been shown to reverse heart disease, so keeping saturated fat down is a good idea. The American Heart Association suggests holding saturated fat under 6 percent of calories, which on a 2,000-calorie diet is under about 13 grams a day. A single egg has around 1.5 grams. Put it together, and eggs fit comfortably within a heart-healthy diet, which is what the extensive research, much of it from Harvard, has found. As the doctors at Harvard Medical School put it, for most people an egg a day does not raise the risk of heart attack, stroke, or any other cardiovascular disease.

Then why do the headlines keep flip-flopping?

Because the data itself is genuinely mixed, which tells you something. Every few years a study reignites the debate. A widely covered 2019 JAMA study of nearly 30,000 adults, for instance, concluded that eating about two eggs a day was associated with a 27% higher risk of heart disease and a 34% higher risk of early death. That sounds alarming, but it has to be read in context. The study relied on people recalling their diet on a single occasion and then assuming it stayed constant for up to 30 years, a major limitation, since almost no one eats the same way for three decades. More to the point, the fact that the pendulum keeps swinging back and forth is itself a signal: if eggs were strongly protective or strongly harmful, the data wouldn't keep contradicting itself. That points to relative neutrality.

If eggs are basically neutral, why limit them?

Because there is more to health than heart disease, and because neutral isn't the same as beneficial. Egg yolks are an especially rich source of choline, a nutrient related to the B vitamins that supports brain function and keeps metabolism active. One egg supplies as much choline as six ounces of chicken. But choline is also a driver of TMAO, a compound produced by gut bacteria that has been linked to blood clot formation as well as colon cancer, liver cancer, and generally more aggressive tumor growth and inflammation. In people who eat meat, TMAO spikes after eating eggs; in plant-based eaters, that response is blunted, likely because their gut bacteria are different. There's also a group that should be a bit more cautious: the AHA still advises people with diabetes or at risk for heart failure to keep a closer eye on cholesterol-rich foods, eggs included.

So how many eggs should you eat?

Enough to enjoy them, but not so many that they crowd out better choices. Here's the way I think about it: if a food is roughly neutral for health, it still makes sense to eat less of it, because you want your plate filled mostly with foods that are actively building health. So if the choice is between a bowl of whole-grain oatmeal and a plate of eggs, eat the oatmeal. That doesn't mean depriving yourself; an egg a day, on average, is probably fine, especially if the rest of your diet is primarily plant-based. A three-egg omelet every day is not a wise approach, but it wasn't a wise approach before any of these studies came out either. Personally, I try to follow a whole-food, plant-based diet. I'm not perfect at it, but I keep getting better, I eat Step One Foods every day, and, as someone with a family history of both colon and liver cancer, I hold my own egg intake to at most two a week.

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