Another Great Reason to Eat Egg Yolks

I know most of you are not pregnant, but there's a lesson in this that can be useful to you anyway- and of course if you know someone who is pregnant (or planning to be), pass it on!

New research suggests that what a woman eats during pregnancy may offer her offspring protection against breast cancer. Researchers at Boston University studied female rats whose mothers were given different amounts of choline, a nutrient found in eggs, during pregnancy. The rats were given either no choline, normal amounts of choline, or extra choline during pregnancy, and, after birth, their female offspring were treated with a chemical that causes breast cancer.

Whilst all of the female offspring went on to develop breast cancer, the results showed that offspring of the rats that had received extra choline during pregnancy had slow growing tumors whereas the offspring of rats that consumed no choline during pregnancy had fast growing tumors.

Furthermore, the slow growing tumors in the offspring of rats fed extra choline had a genetic pattern similar to those seen in breast cancers of women who are considered to have a good prognosis, whereas the genetic changes that occurred in the fast growing tumors were similar to those seen in women with very aggressive forms of breast cancer that are associated with a poor prognosis.

So what's the lesson?

Well, first of all, guess where choline is found? In the yolks of eggs. The very part that the idiot wing of the American Dietetic Association has been cautioning against, leading to the epidemic of "healthy" egg-white omlettes our low-fat friends are so fond of. I've been preaching that this is a bad idea for so long now that my voice is getting hoarse! Stop with the egg-white omlettes already! The good stuff is in the yolks (not that there's not good stuff in the whites as well, but nature put them together for a reason!)

And that's the lesson for all of us, not just those who are pregnant. Low-fat (or no-fat) versions of whole foods are rarely an improvement over the way they were "designed". Fat is not what we need to fear in the American diet (sugar is, but that's another story)

This research comes on the heels of recent studies by Jeff Volek, PhD, RD showing that eggs can also lower inflammation, a silent killer if there ever was one.

Choline is an undiscovered superstar in the nutrient galaxy, and is truly a "brain food". The best food source of choline is (unfortunately) beef liver, but the second best is a whole egg. Beef, cauliflower and navy beans also have some as well.

Choline is in the B-vitamin family. A single capsule of B-Supreme contains 200mg of choline, more than an entire egg. I also recommend the Choline Punch created by my good friend and colleague Dr. Al Sears.