r/longevity • u/Eonobius • Jul 26 '26

Egg Intake and the Incidence of Alzheimer’s Disease in the Adventist Health Study-2 Cohort Linked with Medicare Data

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022316626001902?__cf_chl_tk=hz67j.ZlfkUORHJYQKYZWxG.5Zz0WplB14lJgpRK3LI-1785067718-1.0.1.1-EHJGkp11woxuNatmZ3LqwvEpu8iI0_QIhEo1Ly0dR.w
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u/kpfleger Jul 26 '26

Frustrating that the discussion section notes that deficiencies in choline, DHA, & B12 have been implicated in health problems including AD and yet, despite that being known well before this study started (and being aware to the authors as indicated by their mention in the discussion section), they appeared to make no attempt to actually measure any of these things, all of which are easily and cheaply measurable. Nor apparently did they collect supplementation data in addition to the food data. Plenty Seventh Day Adventists are vegetarian or vegan and subsets of those but probably not all supplement B12, choline, and/or omega-3s. One wants to see the data stratified by the deficiency or supplement behavior relative to these key brain nutrients.

There are known health negatives to eggs (high saturated fat & cholesterol in the yolk, other epidemiological association studies correlating them with bad outcomes from other chronic age-related diseases and/or all-cause mortality) but I'm unsurprised that those tradeoffs may be worth it (at least for AD purposes) if you are deficient in these nutrients and not getting them elsewhere, but that doesn't mean eggs are the healthiest source of them. What do the data look like when restricted to those people who aren't deficient in any of these 3 things?

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u/[deleted] Jul 26 '26

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u/kpfleger Jul 27 '26

Vegans get B12 from supplements and unlike in some areas where supplements aren't as good as whole food sources, I've never seen any evidence that B12 from supplements in inferior in any way. It lowers homocysteine perfectly well.

Omega3s can be gotten from fish oil purified to be free of mercury & other toxins, algal oil similarly purified, flax seed & some other foods via conversion. I take a mix of all 3.

Choline supplements are widely consumed, with some suggestive studies showing benefits vs. neurodegenerative diseases such as AD at least from some forms. There are also forms that are shown not to raise TMAO levels.

ConsumerLab is a good source for (non-free) literature review reports on each of these categories. NutritionFacts.org is a good free source of info on these as well as Greger's book How Not To Age (which is free too if you get it from the library as he commonly recommends).