The cholesterol question
At the turn of the 20th century, a scientist named Nikolai Anichkov fed rabbits a diet of pure cholesterol. Their arteries clogged, and the concept that cholesterol causes heart disease was born. Later, in the 1950s, Ancel Keys published a well-known study that concluded that people from cultures that ate the most animal fat were most likely to develop heart disease (his analysis has since been called into question). These two studies proved highly influential and the presupposition that cholesterol and animal fat are bad for the heart became the basis for the American Heart Association’s recommendation that you should not consume more than 300 mg of cholesterol per day. Since a whole small egg contains 47 percent of the daily cholesterol allowance and a large egg contains 62 percent of it, it’s no wonder they’re often considered bad for your heart.