According to a new research fears of eggs causing high blood cholesterol and heart disease have no substance to them.

Although 45 % of the British people feel the recommended limit is three eggs a week for healthy people a paper to be published soon in the British Nutrition Foundation's Nutrition Bulletin has shown that cholesterol in eggs have a small and clinically insignificant effect on blood cholesterol.

The research paper was written by Dr Juliet Gray, Registered Public Health Nutritionist, and Professor Bruce Griffin, Professor of Nutritional Metabolism from the University of Surrey. They reported that although people with high cholesterol are at an increased risk of heart disease only a third of the cholesterol in the body is related to diet. High cholesterol is linked to smoking, being overweight, a sedentary lifestyle or lack of exercise and the largest food factor being the consumption of saturated fat.

Prof Griffin said: "The ingrained misconception linking egg consumption to high blood cholesterol and heart disease must be corrected.

"The amount of saturated fat in our diet exerts an effect on blood cholesterol that is several times greater than the relatively small amounts of dietary cholesterol.

"The UK public do not need to be limiting the number of eggs they eat. They can be encouraged to include them in a healthy diet as they are one of nature's most nutritionally dense foods."

In response the British Heart Foundation (BHF) dispensed with its earlier recommendation of limiting egg consumption to three or four a week and the Food Standards Agency has said that people who eat a balanced diet do not need to restrict their egg intake. Only people who have an inherited genetic susceptibility to high blood cholesterol linked to an increased risk of coronary heart disease are still advised to consume only two or three eggs a week.

Victoria Taylor, senior dietician at the BHF said, “We recommend that eggs can be eaten as part of a balanced diet. There is cholesterol present in eggs but this does not usually make a great contribution to your level of blood cholesterol.

“If you need to reduce your blood cholesterol level it is more important that you cut down on the amount of saturated fat in your diet from foods like fatty meat, full fat dairy products, cakes, biscuits and pastries.”

The study said that health chiefs and GPs should emphasis the need for a healthy low saturated fat diet and demolish the myths about eggs and heart disease.

GMTV's Dr Hilary Jones said: "There is so much confusion surrounding dietary cholesterol and blood cholesterol. Many people think that simply cutting out dietary cholesterol by avoiding foods like eggs is an easy way to reduce heart disease risk."But this ignores the most important dietary factor - cutting down on saturated fat is much more critical." (Harkiran contributed to this report)