”This is the operative statement. The others are inoperative…”

Fears that eating one egg a day will lead to high cholesterol and heart disease were challenged yesterday by scientific research.
It seems that there is no reason after all for healthy people to limit egg consumption to three a week — even though nearly half of British people believe that this is the maximum recommended number.

Well, fancy! So, no ‘scientific research’ was done on the subject before they dished out the original advice, was it?

And they wonder why people are rightly sceptical about ‘man made climate change’ and don’t know who to believe on the great MMR debate….

A paper to be published soon in the British Nutrition Foundation's Nutrition Bulletin has found that cholesterol in eggs has only a small and clinically insignificant effect on blood cholesterol. While people with high blood cholesterol are at increased risk of heart disease, only a third of the cholesterol in the body is attributed to diet.

Needless to say, the people with egg on their face over the incorrect advice will be quick to point out that this could be an attempt by the dastardly egg producing industry to muddy the waters:

There was some scepticism about the findings when it was confirmed that Juliet Gray, a public health nutritionist, was funded by the egg industry for her research time. The co-author Bruce Griffin, a professor of nutritional metabolism at the University of Surrey, did not receive payment, though in the past he has advised the British Egg Industry Council on scientific issues.

So what? This is another brick often thrown at those who produce man made global warming-sceptical research that is discovered to be funded by the oil industry.

But if it’s the case that their science is therefore dodgy, it should be easy to disprove, shouldn’t it? There should be no need to resort to ‘Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you?’ arguments…

And it seems that other organisations have been quietly walking back the previous advice for some time:

However, it also emerged yesterday that the British Heart Foundation (BHF) revised its advice on egg consumption two years ago and no longer suggests a maximum of three eggs a week.

Did they ever launch a publicity campaign to revoke the previous advice, and therefore expose themselves as credulous fools in thrall to the latest theory, no matter how little evidence it is based on?

Perish the thought:

This advice is in line with guidance from the Food Standards Agency, which also says that most people have no reason to worry about the number of eggs they eat a week — though anyone who has inherited a genetic susceptibility to high blood cholesterol linked to increased risk of coronary heart disease, about one in 500 people in Britain, is still advised to stick to two or at most three eggs a week.

You mean, one size doesn’t fit all? And we should all consider our individual circumstances before deciding whether to follow official advice?

Well, you can see why they wouldn’t want to shout that from the rooftops…

The study concludes that health chiefs and GPs should demolish the myths about eggs and heart disease and communicate a message that there is no need to limit the number eaten as long as they are part of a healthy low saturated fat diet.

Let’s see if they do that. And let’s see if people draw the inevitable conclusions…