If you’re a diabetic and really love eggs, there’s good news.
You may be wondering how many eggs you can “get away with” each week if you have diabetes.
Dr. Nick Fuller and his team at the University of Sidney’s Boden Institute of Obesity, Nutrition, Exercise and Eating Disorders have determined that the magic number is 12 over a seven day period.
The study, which appears in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, occurred over 12 months.
One group ate a dozen eggs per week while another group ate two. At no point over the 12 months were there adverse changes in anyone’s cardiovascular risk markers.
In addition, both groups were on a weight loss plan, and the consumption of 12 eggs a week did not make any difference; both groups achieved the same weight loss.
“Despite differing advice around safe levels of egg consumption for people with pre-diabetes and type 2 diabetes,” says Dr. Fuller in the paper, “our research indicates people do not need to hold back from eggs if this is part of a healthy diet.”
The diet that the study participants were put on replaced saturated fats with the healthier mono- and polyunsaturated fats. An example of this would be olive oil in place of butter.
What are cardiovascular risk markers?
• Cholesterol profile
• Blood pressure
• Blood sugar how many eggs week diabetics eat
Measures of these risk markers were the same in the 12 eggs/week group and in the two eggs/week group.
“While eggs themselves are high in dietary cholesterol — this study supports existing research that shows consumption of eggs has little effect on levels of cholesterol in the blood of the people eating them,” says Dr. Fuller in the report.
He notes that diabetics tend to have higher levels of the so-called “bad” cholesterol: the LDL.
Nevertheless, eating 12 eggs a week is perfectly fine. And not just for diabetics, but for prediabetics and the general population.
Eggs contain protein, plus selenium, vitamin E and other important nutrients, and one egg has only 70 to 80 calories.
