Low Cholesterol on 25 Eggs Per Day

April 12, 2008

Source: _Do You Enjoy Eating Eggs?_

New England Journal of Medicine, 1991.

The subject of this case was an 88-year-old man living alone in a retirement

community. He was healthy except for having Alzheimer's disease. He also had

a compulsive disorder which led him to consume, in addition to regular

meals, 25 soft-boiled eggs every day. Remarkably, there was good evidence from

several sources that this egg-eating behavior had been going on for at least 15

years.

The major metabolic product of cholesterol is bile acids. The disposal of

bile acids by secretion into bile is one of several factors that serve to

maintain normal blood cholesterol concentrations, as was demonstrated in an

elderly man with a compulsion to eat eggs.

The patient's medical records documented numerous serum cholesterol

measurements within the normal range. A number of metabolic studies indicated

that

the patient had several compensatory mechanisms in place which enabled him to

maintain normal blood cholesterol concentrations in the face of longstanding

and massive cholesterol intake:

* Marked reduction in cholesterol absorption - the mechanism for this

effect is not known.

* Greatly increased synthesis (see definition) of bile acids - the

patient synthesized roughly twice the mass of bile acids as control subjects.

* Reduced endogenous cholesterol synthesis (definition).

Definitions:

Endogenous â€“ resulting from conditions within the organism rather than

externally caused.

Synthesis â€“ the forming or building of a more complex substance or compound

from elements or simpler compounds.

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