Association of Egg Consumption with Risk of All-Cause and Cardiovascular Disease Mortality: A Systematic Review and Dose-Response Meta-Analysis of Observational Studies.

BACKGROUND: Recent studies have reported conflicting associations between egg consumption and the risk of all-cause or cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality, including ischemic heart disease (IHD) mortality and stroke mortality. With accumulating evidence, up-to-date evidence about the association should be synthesized. OBJECTIVES: We aimed to assess the association of the risk of all-cause and CVD mortality with egg consumption. METHODS: We searched the PubMed, Embase, and Web of Science databases through 3 November, 2021 for observational studies conducted in participants ≥18 y of age and which provided ORs, RRs, or HRs and 95% CIs for ≥3 egg consumption categories or for increased intake of egg addressing the associations of interest. A random-effects model was used to pool the reported risk estimates. Restricted cubic splines were used to examine the dose-response association. RESULTS: Twenty-four articles with 48 reports (25 for all-cause mortality, 11 for CVD mortality, 6 for IHD mortality, and 6 for stroke mortality) involving 11,890,695 participants were included. Intake of each 1-egg/d increment was associated with increased risk of all-cause mortality (RR: 1.06; 95% CI: 1.02, 1.10; P = 0.008), but the association was restricted to women, Americans, and studies with adjustments for hyperlipidemia. Egg consumption was linearly associated with CVD mortality only in participants >60 y of age, Americans, studies with follow-up duration ≥15 y, and studies with adjustments for hyperlipidemia (P ≤ 0.018). No significant association was found between egg consumption and IHD or stroke mortality (P ≥ 0.080). CONCLUSIONS: Egg consumption was linearly associated with a modestly increased risk of all-cause mortality and, in older participants, Americans, and studies with longer follow-up or adjustments for hyperlipidemia, CVD mortality. These findings suggest that it may be prudent to avoid high egg consumption.

A modified acid-fast staining method for rapid detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

A modified acid-fast staining method was developed for rapid detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and its L forms, wherein carbol fuchsin and dioxogen were mixed into the sputum smear. With this method, the dyeing time is shortened and heating is not required. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, positive rate, and diagnostic efficiency of the new method were compared to those obtained by PCR using 50 clinical samples. Further, 468 clinical samples were analyzed using the new method, the modified intensified Kinyoun (IK) acid-fast staining method, and the traditional Ziehl-Neelsen acid-fast staining method. Differences among the positive detection rates of the three methods were analyzed using Student's t-test, and no significant differences were found between the new method and the modified IK acid-fast staining method, while the rates of both these methods were higher than that of the traditional acid-fast staining method. Additionally, the dyeing time in the new method was markedly less than that in the modified IK acid-fast staining method (5 min and 24 h, respectively).