Eggs and Colorectal Cancer Mortality

by Michael Greger, M.D.

In the largest study of it's kind ever, researchers compared egg consumption across 34 countries over a three decade time span to colon and rectal cancer death rates. They found egg consumption on a population level was significantly associated with mortality in men and women in countries across the world. Yes, but perhaps that's because egg eaters were also more likely to eat meat, or to smoke, or less likely to eat vegetables. Even after controlling for almost all established and potential risk factors for these two cancers, the relationship remained. On a population level, the more eggs that were eaten, the more deaths there was from rectal and colon cancer.

Just because something is related on a population level, however, does not necessarily mean cause and effect. For example, just because the total egg sales in one country is higher than in another country, that doesn't necessarily mean that people are actually eating more eggs in the first country. Maybe one country feeds more of their eggs to farmed or companion animals. Maybe one country cooks or stores eggs differently such that more is wasted or thrown away or spoils in one country than another. What population comparison studies can do, however, is to stimulate more research. As the researchers concluded, if more studies do continue to show this relationship between egg consumption and cancer mortality, urging people to eat less eggs "may provide an easy and practical intervention measure to reduce the tremendous public health burden of colon and rectal cancers."[4]

REFERENCES

4 Nutrition and Cancer 46(2):158.