Your breakfast could very well be the best meal of the day. That is, if you’re eating what I call the perfect Primal food.
A food that contains 319% more of the most important nutrient a diabetic could get.
You see, this food is an excellent source of the essential omega-3 fatty acid docosahexaenoic acid, or DHA. And DHA reduces insulin resistance, the key factor in type 2 diabetes.
The perfect food I’m talking about is eggs.
And researchers from the University of Eastern Finland just discovered that an egg a day keeps diabetes away!
After reviewing the bloodwork of more than 200 people who were followed for 20 years, researchers found that eating one egg daily improves the blood metabolic profile. And that lowers your risk of type 2 diabetes.
The study revealed that this is because eggs are packed with nutrients. I think eggs are the perfect food because one egg contains almost every nutrient you could ever need, including:1
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Now, you might remember when eggs were considered as bad for you as smoking.
Then we were told that it’s OK to eat eggs. As long as you threw away that “dangerous” yolk.
Fast forward a few years later, and the entire egg was considered a superfood.
Until once again, they weren’t…
At least, that’s the opinion of Dr. William Roberts, editor of the American Journal of Cardiology. A few months ago he wrote a long article that declared eating eggs is “unsafe.”2
His whole argument stems on the outdated belief that the cholesterol in eggs causes cardiovascular disease.
As a regular reader, you know that I’ve been fighting this fight my entire career.
A few years ago, I thought that mainstream medicine caught on. First, there was a large study from Harvard researchers who followed 118,000 people.
After 14 years, they found absolutely no link between eggs and heart disease.3
An even bigger study of 600,000 people found that eating an egg a day actually lowered stroke risk by 12%.4
Here’s what I’ve learned from myself, my family and my patients: You can eat eggs for breakfast, lunch and dinner and be healthy. In fact, I eat eggs every day and I have the heart of a 25-year-old!
A South American bodybuilder I saw as a patient ate 18 eggs a day for years. He had 4% body fat and no heart disease at all.
The DHA alone makes eggs the perfect food. In a study published recently, researchers tested the blood of volunteers given DHA supplements. After supplementing for eight weeks, they had a significant reduction in fasting glucose.5
A separate study from Harvard found that the fatty acids in omega-3s raise levels of a hormone called adiponectin that’s involved in regulating glucose levels.6
And the higher your adiponectin levels, the lower your risk of diabetes.
Eat the Perfect Primal Food to Prevent Diabetes
As I said, l eat eggs every day. But I don’t buy just any eggs. Most supermarket eggs come from factory-farmed chickens. They are raised in filthy conditions with hundreds of cages stacked two stories high.
Chickens raised in those conditions are 25 times more likely to become contaminated with salmonella than free-roaming chickens.
And factory eggs are much less nutritious than eggs from hens that roam free. When I did my own tests on pastured eggs from my local farmer, they were off the charts for omega-3s.
- Look for the “Rolls Royce” of eggs. These are the eggs labeled Pastured or Pasture-Raised. Pastured chickens live on small farms where they run around freely. Each day they’re herded in small groups to fresh pastureland. They have fresh greens to eat and a clean environment. These chickens have plenty of space, sunshine and a natural diet to eat. To find pastured eggs from a local farmer or farmers’ market near you, check out www.LocalHarvest.org. This is my go-to guide for finding the best sources of farm fresh food.
- Don’t confuse pastured with free-range. The USDA allows a “free-range” label if the chicken coop has a door to the outside. But that means a door simply exists. It doesn’t mean the chickens actually ever get to see the light of day.
- Go organic if you can’t find pastured eggs. Organic eggs come from cage-free hens fed organic, vegetarian feed. Neither the hens or their feed is subjected to antibiotics, hormones or pesticides.
To Your Good Health,
Al Sears, MD, CNS
References
1. Nutrition. What’s in an egg? Australian Eggs.
2. Are eggs bad for you? Two scientists square off. The Wall Street Journal. September 13, 2018.
3. Hu FB, et al. “A prospective study of egg consumption and risk of cardiovascular disease in men and women.” JAMA. 1999;281(15):1387-1394.
4. Alexander DD, et al. “Meta-analysis of egg consumption and risk of coronary heart disease and stroke.” J Am Coll Nutr. 2016;35(8):704-716.
5. Rundblad A, et al. “Effects of krill oil and lean and fatty fish on cardiovascular risk markers: A randomised controlled trial.” J Nutri Sci. 2018;7:e3.
6. Endocrine Society. “Fish oil supplements may help fight against type 2 diabetes.” Science Daily. May 22, 2013.