Weight Loss Nutrition

Are chicken eggs good or bad for my cholesterol?

If you're trying to lower your cholesterol, you may need to rethink your breakfast choices.

The yolk in a regular egg contains 213 mg of cholesterol. It's recommended that a healthy person limit their daily intake of dietary cholesterol to less than 300 milligrams. That means that if you decide to have one egg for breakfast, you'll want to carefully monitor your cholesterol intake for the rest of the day.

If you have cardiovascular disease, diabetes, or high cholesterol, you may need to eliminate the egg yolk completely. People who have high cholesterol or are at risk for developing high cholesterol should limit their dietary cholesterol intake to less than 200 mg a day. Instead of eating a whole egg, you can try eating egg whites, which contain no cholesterol. You may also try cholesterol-free egg substitutes that are made from egg whites.

Monitoring your dietary cholesterol is an important step toward maintaining good health. High cholesterol can lead to heart attacks and strokes. To avoid these risks, aim for an LDL (or "bad cholesterol") level of 100 mg/dL. If you already have heart disease, your doctor may recommend you reach an LDL level of 70 mg/dL. Your total cholesterol level, which is a combination of LDL and HDL (or "good" cholesterol), should be less than 200.