Eating an egg a day could protect against strokes and coronary heart disease

An advertising campaign from the 1950s advising people to "go to work on an egg" was thoroughly good advice, according to new research.

The study of more than 400,000 people in China suggests that an egg a day may reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.

It found that daily consumers had lower rates of strokes and heart disease when compared to those who did not eat eggs.

Researchers from the Peking University Health Science Centre monitored 416,213 people over a period of nine years.

At the start of the study, 13.1% of participants reported daily consumption of eggs and 9.1% said they never or rarely ate them.

The findings, reported in the journal Heart, found those who ate up to one a day had a 26% lower risk of haemorrhagic stroke, 28% lower risk of haemorrhagic stroke death and an 18% lower risk of cardiovascular
disease death.

There was also a 12% reduction in the risk of ischaemic heart disease, or coronary heart disease, in those consuming an estimated 5.32 eggs a week compared to those eating around two.

The report's authors wrote: "This present study finds that there is an association between moderate level of egg consumption (up to one egg per day) and a lower cardiac event rate.

"Our findings contribute scientific evidence to the dietary guidelines with regard to egg consumption for the healthy Chinese adult."

Professor Nita Forouhi, of the Medical Research Council epidemiology unit at the University of Cambridge, said: "The take home message of this research from a large study from China is that at the very least up to one egg a day is not linked with raised cardiovascular risk, and at best up to one egg a day may even have health benefits.

"The researchers accounted for many dietary and other behaviours in their analyses, but it is important to emphasise that eggs are not eaten in isolation, and overall healthy or unhealthy dietary patterns will always matter."

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The advertising slogan Go to Work on an Egg became one of the most famous in UK advertising history.

Beginning in 1957, the Egg Marketing Board campaign culminated in a series of TV ads in 1965, fronted by Tony Hancock, then one of the UK's biggest stars. It aimed to promote healthy eating at a time when rationing after the Second World War had only just come to an end.

However plans to revive it in 2007 to mark the campaign's 50th anniversary were scuppered by the Broadcast Advertising Clearance Centre on the grounds that it did not promote a varied diet.