Eggs are very nutritious. We usually cook eggs for breakfast in the morning. But some people say that they can only eat two eggs a day. If they exceed the limit, they will easily suffer from hypercholesterolemia. As a result, many friends carefully control them within one or even dare not eat them. Can't eat more eggs? Can more than two really cause hypercholesterolemia?
According to the data of the Chinese food composition table, the cholesterol content of an egg is 585mg / 100g, and the cholesterol content of a 50g shelled egg is about 290mg, mainly concentrated in the yolk. The content itself is relatively high in food.
However, cholesterol in food and cholesterol in human blood cannot be directly matched, that is to say, eating more eggs than the recommended amount (1) does not necessarily lead to hypercholesterolemia. This is because:
1. Cholesterol in human body mainly depends on self synthesis, not food supply. Our liver synthesizes 1000-2000 mg of cholesterol every day, accounting for about 60-70% of our total cholesterol. Only a small part of cholesterol is taken from food. These cholesterol have many uses, such as the formation of human cells, synthetic sex hormones, adrenocortical hormones, synthetic vitamin D3 and bile.
2、 If a person 's cholesterol metabolism is normal, even if the cholesterol in the food is increased, it may not lead to the increase of cholesterol in the blood.
Experiments have shown that for those with strong regulatory ability, eating three yolks a day has no abnormal cholesterol level. Of course, for people with poor regulation, eating three yolk cholesterol does increase. If the metabolism of cholesterol is abnormal, hypercholesterolemia may occur even if you eat little animal food, strictly control the dietary cholesterol, or even become a vegetarian.
Therefore, this shows that the increase of cholesterol intake in food is not necessarily related to whether it will cause the rise of blood cholesterol, but closely related to its own cholesterol metabolism ability, that is to say, the situation varies from person to person.
This is one of the reasons why it was generally recommended that adults' dietary cholesterol intake should not exceed 300mg per day. However, most countries around the world have cancelled this restriction.
3. Moreover, even if you eat high cholesterol food, it doesn't mean that so much cholesterol has been absorbed by the human body. Whether cholesterol is absorbed is influenced by many factors. First of all, there are some differences in the absorption and utilization of cholesterol among different individuals. On average, only about 30% of cholesterol can be absorbed and utilized. In addition, plant sterols, dietary fiber and other factors in the diet will reduce the absorption and utilization rate of cholesterol. So although the cholesterol content of eggs and other foods seems to be high, most of them cannot be absorbed and utilized by the human body.
4. At the same time, the egg lipids contain about 28% phospholipids, 37-39% monounsaturated fatty acids and polyunsaturated fatty acids, which are also helpful to promote the reasonable transport and metabolism of cholesterol.
5. To sum up, eating more eggs does not mean that the cholesterol level in the blood is increased, nor will it necessarily cause hypercholesterolemia. Chinese residents' dietary guidelines suggest that an average of one egg per day (or equivalent amount of other eggs) for adults is mainly due to the consideration of nutritional balance and food diversification. After all, there is no food that can meet the diversified nutritional needs of the human body. It's not that eating two or more eggs is not good. If one day livestock, poultry, fish, shrimp and seafood eat less meat, it's no problem to increase the amount of eggs properly.
However, if you often eat more eggs and less other animal food, you may lack some B vitamins and minerals, such as iron, zinc and selenium, due to the unbalanced nutrition, so you can eat two or more eggs a day, but one egg a day is enough from the perspective of a diversified diet.