You might’ve heard too many eggs make you constipated. Influencers on Instagram claim it too . The United Kingdom has slang for it – being “ egg bound ”.
Eggs were once blamed for raising blood cholesterol levels, which turned out to be false . Did we get it wrong about eggs and constipation too?
Here’s what the mixed bag of evidence tells us. Starting with constipation
Constipation means different things to different people, and there are many different types.
Let’s focus on “functional constipation”, when people have hard, infrequent and often difficult-to-pass bowel movements. This constipation isn’t due to a physical blockage of the bowel or from disease.
Functional constipation is very common. Globally, about one in ten adults (10.1%) and one in seven children (14.4%) have it at any one time. Is eating eggs to blame?
Several studies link eating eggs with constipation, but not necessarily how you’d think.
A 2002 study of 1,699 Japanese residents over 40 found Japanese women who ate eggs at least five times a week were less likely to be constipated. Eating eggs didn’t affect constipation rates in men. The researchers couldn’t explain the difference.
A later study involved 3,770 female Japanese university students who filled in a questionnaire about what they’d eaten over the past month. A Western diet high in foods such as processed meats and eggs was linked to more constipation than a traditional Japanese diet (which has lots of rice but not much bread or confectionary). Another study looked at middle-aged adults in southern China who ate duck or chicken eggs as part of a Western diet. This was linked to a higher risk of constipation compared with the traditional southern Chinese diet, which has lots of refined grains, vegetables, fruits, pickled vegetables, fish and prawns.However, such dietary studies mostly rely on participants remembering what they ate. People also don’t always fill in dietary questionnaires truthfully, and tend to under-report eating unhealthy food and over-report eating healthy food. So dietary questionnaires aren’t always accurate.They also rarely look at a single food item (such as eggs) in isolation.Even if these studies mention eggs, the population […]
Do eggs really make you constipated? A gut expert on what the evidence says
