How many eggs can I eat per day, and do they raise cholesterol?

Eggs are among the most cholesterol-rich foods, which is why old advice put a cap on them. But cholesterol in food and cholesterol in the blood are not the same thing. Blesso and Fernandez, in their review, note that roughly two-thirds of us barely respond to cholesterol from food. In the third who do respond clearly, both "bad" LDL and "good" HDL rise, so the ratio between them stays broadly unchanged.

The largest synthesis comes from Drouin-Chartier and colleagues, who pooled 33 cohort studies with over 1.7 million participants. Up to one egg a day was not linked to any higher risk of cardiovascular disease, and one extra egg per day gave a relative risk of 0.98. In Asian populations there was even a hint of lower risk.

The picture isn't entirely consistent. A pooled analysis of six US cohorts (Zhong and colleagues, 29,615 participants) found that each extra 300 mg of cholesterol from food was tied to higher risk. But the culprit was the cholesterol, not the egg itself: once adjusted for total cholesterol intake, the egg's own effect faded away. For most healthy people, the research points to moderate egg consumption, around one a day, without cause for concern, while anyone with diabetes or known heart disease should check with their healthcare provider.

"Cholesterol in food becomes cholesterol in the blood" is an intuitive inference, and that is exactly why it lingers. The US cap of 300 mg a day stood in dietary guidelines for decades before it was dropped in 2015, but public memory lags behind the authorities. Headlines don't help. Every new study is framed as a reversal, and "eggs are dangerous again" sells more clicks than "much as before". There are interests on both sides, too. The egg industry is happy to fund research that clears the egg, while alarm reports bring attention to whoever raises them. What stays in the middle is the dull but true answer: for most people the egg's cholesterol matters little.

If you are healthy, you rarely need to count eggs. One a day fits for the vast majority, and an egg is also a cheap, complete source of protein that keeps you full. If weight is your concern, total calories are what move the scale, as always, regardless of whether the protein comes from eggs or something else. If you have diabetes, high cholesterol or known heart disease, the number is worth raising with your healthcare provider rather than guessing on your own.