"Eggs and Choline: Something Fishy"
If you remember I lampooned
the egg industry PR campaign trying to promote eggs
as a source of eyesight saving nutrients such as lutein
by noting the the amount in a single spoonful of spinach
had as much as nine eggs.
The reason you'll only hear that egg industry claim
on websites and TV shows and never in an ad
or on an egg carton is because there are laws
against false and misleading advertisement
that don't allow the industry to say eggs contain lutein
because there's such an insignificant amount.
This is an email retrieved through the Freedom of Information Act
from the head of USDA's poultry research and promotion programs
reminding the egg industry that they can't
mention lutein in an egg ad.
Can't say it helps people with macular degeneration.
Can't even talk about how good lutein is
since eggs have such a wee amount
and given egg's fat and cholesterol content,
this is a nonstarter for anything but PR.
So for public relations you can lie through your teeth,
but there's laws covering truthfulness in ads.
Also can't say eggs are a source of omega 3s,
or a source of iron or folate.
Can't even honestly call eggs a rich source of protein.
The USDA Agriculture Marketing Service suggested
the egg industry instead boast about
the choline content in eggs,
one of the only two nutrients eggs are actually rich in,
besides cholesterol.
So the egg industry switched gears.
A priority objective of the American Egg Board
became to make choline out to be an urgent problem
and eggs the solution.
Maybe they could partner with a physician's group
and write an advertorial.
They developed a number of "advertorials" for nutrition journals.
An advertorial is an advertisement
parading as an objective editorial.
They sent letters out to doctors warning about
inadequate intake of choline having tremendous public health implications.
So forget about the cholesterol,
the "elephant-in-the-room," as the industry calls it,
and focus on this conjured epidemic of choline deficiency.
Turns out most people get about twice what they need
and in fact too much choline may be the real problem.
For one thing, too much choline
can give your breath, urine, sweat, saliva, and vaginal secretions
an odor resembling rotten, dead fish.
Millions of Americans have a genetic defect
that causes a fishy body odor
and might benefit from a low-choline diet,
since choline is converted in our gut
into the fishy compound trimethylamine.
In fact, individuals oozing trimethylamine
"often become vegans,"
"as reducing the ingestion of dietary animal products"
"rich in lipids decreases (trimethylamine) production"
"and the associated noxious odour."
The other 99% of us, though,
can turn the fishy choline compound into trimethylamine OXIDE,
which is 100 times less stinky.
We used to think the extra choline was OK for the 99%,
but not anymore...
Researchers at the Cleveland Clinic found
dietary choline, found predominantly in eggs, milk, liver,
red meat, poultry, and fish,
after it is converted in our gut to trimethylamine
and oxidized in our liver to form trimethylamine oxide,
may contribute to plaque build-up in people's arteries
and set us up for heart disease, stroke, death,
and if that's not bad enough, open heart surgery.
The good news is that this may mean
a new approach to prevent or treat heart disease,
the most obvious of which would be
to limit dietary choline intake.
But if that means decreasing egg, meat, and dairy consumption,
then the new approach sounds an awful lot like the old approach.
Choline may be one of the reasons
people following the Atkins diet are at increased risk
of heart disease whereas a plant-based diet like Ornish
can instead REVERSE our number one killer.
This new research adds choline
to the list of dietary culprits
with the potential to increase the risk of heart disease,
making eggs a double whammy—
the most concentrated common source
of both choline and cholesterol.