Eat an egg for breakfast, prevent a stroke?

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Eating an egg a day may help protect against cardiovascular disease, according to a study published online May 21 by the journal Heart. Researchers found that people who ate an egg every day had an 18% lower risk of dying from cardiovascular disease and a 28% lower risk of experiencing a deadly hemorrhagic stroke, compared with people who didn't eat eggs.

The study included more than 400,000 adults ages 30 to 79. Participants were from 10 survey sites in China. Researchers looked at how often study subjects reported eating eggs and then tracked their health for nearly nine years using registries and other methods.

Those who reported moderate egg consumption — one a day — were far less likely than non-egg eaters both to develop cardiovascular disease, ischemic heart disease, heart attacks and related events, hemorrhagic stroke, and ischemic stroke.