Broadcast Retirement Network’s Jeffrey Snyder discusses the power of the egg in preventing Alzheimer’s disease with Think Healthy Group, LLC‘s Taylor C. Wallace.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Dr. Wallace, it’s so great to see you. Thanks for joining us this morning.
Taylor C. Wallace, Think Healthy Group, LLC
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
I always appreciate nutritional advice and today we’re talking about the power of the egg. Before we kind of go into what it could mean for preventing Alzheimer’s and dementia, let’s talk about how nutritionally potent the egg is.
Taylor C. Wallace, Think Healthy Group, LLC
Right, so an egg is, like what you said, a nutrition powerhouse. And one thing that is really unique about the egg is it contains a nutrient called choline, which about 90% of Americans don’t get enough of. And choline is really unique in that it works really well with DHA, which we know is often, or is very brain healthy, which is, and DHA is also present in eggs.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
And, I mean, I like a good scrambled egg. I mean, is there from a health and nutritional point of view, I understand the, and it has a lot of benefits, but beyond just the DHA is my understanding, but is there a limit to how many eggs we should or should not consume during the week?
Taylor C. Wallace, Think Healthy Group, LLC
Well, so the data is really up in the air about how many eggs we should consume. Safely, you can probably consume two to three eggs per day and be just fine. If you’re diabetic, you might want to be a little bit more cautious, maybe stay on the one to two eggs per day.
However, again, the data is really not strong in that area. Right.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
And let’s talk a little bit more about the choline. Other than eggs, which we’re talking about this morning, are there other foods or vegetables or places that we can find other than supplementation? Because you could, I guess, do a choline supplement, but are there other foods that we can take that would have the same impact as an egg in terms of the choline?
Taylor C. Wallace, Think Healthy Group, LLC
Well, I’m not sure that there are foods that would have the same impact because like you said, eggs have that unique nutrient profile of an array of vitamins and minerals. But we know that in general, fatty fish are good sources of choline and DHA. We know that organ meats like chicken or beef liver contain a lot of choline, which it’s processed in our livers.
So that makes sense. And so there are sources that are equivalent or even a little bit higher in choline, but they’re not as widely consumed as eggs.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
And where does the egg fit? I mean, I always thought of the egg as a breakfast food, although I have to be candid with you in the audience in that I could eat breakfast at any time of the day. But where does the egg kind of fit into the ideal diet for the average American that we don’t want them consuming preservatives and ultra-processed foods?
So where does that egg fit in?
Taylor C. Wallace, Think Healthy Group, LLC
Well, so eggs fit in at almost any mealtime. Typically we consume whole eggs unless you’re consuming like a hard-boiled egg, which you might have on top of a salad or with dinner. But typically we consume whole eggs at breakfast.
However, eggs are, because of their yolk, are emulsifiers. So they bring water and oil together. So eggs are present in a lot of baked goods and other products where you would salad dressings, where you would expect oil and water to come together.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
And the egg, we were talking earlier about the health benefits and certainly people should consult their doctor when it comes to measurements like cholesterol, the impact to the heart. But is there a good rule of thumb to kind of balance that? And I know you said the research is kind of ebbs and flows.
I mean, when I was a kid, you know, 40 years ago, the doctor said, you know, two eggs a week. And I think, you know, based on current thinking, you can have a couple of eggs a day. But, you know, is there a rule of thumb in terms of balancing?
Balancing the benefits of the egg versus, you know, the choline, the good vitamins, the impact, positive impact to your system versus maybe some of these other things like cholesterol, the diabetes you mentioned.
Taylor C. Wallace, Think Healthy Group, LLC
Right. So for most people who consume animal source foods, about one egg per day will get you to your choline requirement. We’ve shown that in modeling studies.
So really going above like two eggs from a choline perspective doesn’t really, you know, get you, you know, any further for where you want to go. And our recent studies showed, you know, just as little as one egg per week can have effects on long-term development of Alzheimer’s dementia. Now, what’s important here from a cholesterol standpoint, if you are our age, you remember when cholesterol was so bad for you.
And that was actually derived from two rodent studies in the 1960s that were sponsored by the American Heart Association. Well, jump forward, you know, 50 years or so, we’ve learned that humans are very different than rats. And that for the majority of us, the large majority of us, the cholesterol that you consume does not, is not equivalent to your blood cholesterol levels.
And what really matters is the amount of, for example, saturated fat that you consume. Now, this gets kind of muddled when you talk about animal source proteins, because animal source proteins provide cholesterol in general. And they also provide saturated fat in general.
The exception are eggs and shrimp. So you see people that consume, you know, pretty high amounts of eggs, you know, two, three, four eggs a day, don’t really show increases in blood cholesterol levels. Now, there is some speculation that diabetics are a little bit more sensitive to this.
But even the meta-analyses there, you know, three to four eggs a day is pretty safe. So my general recommendation is if you want to be really conservative, and you want to be safe, two, you know, three eggs max per day, perfectly fine, shouldn’t do anything to your cholesterol levels, as long as you’re avoiding saturated fat intake, right? So don’t, you know, cook those eggs in a bunch of butter, or, you know, have those biscuits my grandmother made with lard, and you should be okay.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Yeah, I was going to ask you, as a follow up to that, what’s the best way to prepare the eggs? Of course, you can hard boil it. I like a good hard boiled egg, scrambled, but is there, you know, suffice to say, don’t use lard, don’t use a lot of butter, how about olive oil?
How about some of the cooking sprays that are out there? Are there better ways to serve eggs than others?
Taylor C. Wallace, Think Healthy Group, LLC
Right, well, olive oil kind of has this health halo. But in fact, if you just take regular vegetable oil, or canola oil that you buy at the grocery store, it actually has a lower amount of saturated fat compared to olive oil. So, you know, olive oil kind of got that health halo with Mediterranean diet.
So I just recommend, you know, you use the cheap stuff, go buy vegetable oil, and then at least in the US, that’s mostly soy, soybean oil and canola oil, and it’s pretty low in saturated fat compared to the other plant based oils.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Well, Dr. Wallace, we’ve got about a minute left. And I want to ask you, you do a lot of research. I mean, I wonder if you might talk about some of the research you’re going to be doing, and maybe some of the key takeaways or key findings that you expect or have seen from some of that research.
Taylor C. Wallace, Think Healthy Group, LLC
Right. So, you know, like you probably already know, we do a lot of work on prevention of cognitive decline in older adulthood. And so we’re actually looking at women because I’m not sure if you’re familiar, but women have a much higher incidence of developing Alzheimer’s dementia later in life.
And the body actually produces choline in small amounts. Now, in women, choline in the body is produced alongside estrogen. So when women go through menopause, there’s a theory we have that when you lose the ability to produce estrogen, you lose the ability to produce some of that choline that you naturally produce in the body.
And Alzheimer’s we know is degradation of the cholinergenic system, which involves acetyl choline, which choline is a precursor to. So we think that there’s something there with the menopause transition in women. And so looking at supplementing before women go into the menopause transition could help preserve some of those neurotransmitters later in life.
So eggs might actually be more important at this nutrition sensitive time point in women, the menopause transition. We’re also looking at early infancy and pregnancy because we know that over 40 rodent models show that high choline intakes during pregnancy and during the first thousand days of life, at least the equivalent to that in rodents, can prevent cognitive decline, including Alzheimer’s disease in these model, in these rodent models later in life. So we’ve been looking at that from the early childhood perspective as well.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Yeah. So certainly not much going on in your office. Dr. Wallace, thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate your excellent analysis and we look forward to having you back on the program again very soon, sir.
Taylor C. Wallace, Think Healthy Group, LLC
Thank you so much.