How many eggs per day?

Some people like eggs. This man did. Maybe he still does!

Here's a summary as it's not available on pubmed:

Normal Plasma Cholesterol in an 88-Year-Old Man who Eats 25 Eggs a Day: Mechanisms of Adaptation (1991) Kern Jr, New England J Medicine 324(13):896-899

The effect of dietary cholesterol intake on serum cholesterol level is known to vary among individuals. The homeostatic and regulatory mechanisms which tend to keep serum cholesterol constant operate at different levels of efficiency in different individuals. An extreme case is reported here. A physician and colleagues from the University of Colorado School of Medicine have studied an 88-year-old man who, for ill-defined psychological reasons, has consumed 20 to 30 eggs daily for at least 15 years. This individual has maintained normal serum lipid levels and has no history of clinically important heart disease. He consented to participate in a variety of tests of cholesterol metabolism; the findings were compared with those obtained in an ongoing study of 11 normal volunteers who were tested while consuming normal diets and diets supplemented with five eggs per day. It was found that this individual had extremely efficient mechanisms that compensated for his phenomenally high cholesterol intake. In particular, he absorbed only 18 % of the cholesterol that he consumed; the comparison subjects absorbed 54.6% when on low-cholesterol diets and 46.4% when on high-cholesterol diets. He also showed a doubling of the usual rate of conversion of cholesterol to bile acids, moderately reduced cholesterol synthesis, and a possible increase in biliary cholesterol secretion. "These physiologic adaptations would leave little if any of the dietary cholesterol to elevate plasma cholesterol levels and be deposited in arterial walls."


That's assuming you subscribe to the cholesterol myths anyway. I have to say six egg yolks is my normal daily consumption, only occasionally does it reach nine in a day. Never 25, at least so far...

Thanks to Jakob on the AHOA discussion forum for the above text.

Peter