Eating an egg a day could reduce a person's risk of developing cardiovascular disease (CVD), a new study has found.

CVD, which includes heart disease and stroke, is the leading cause of death and disability worldwide. Around 10,000 people die as a result of CVD in Ireland every year - that is around one-third of all deaths in this country.

Chinese and UK researchers set out to examine any links between egg consumption and CVD. They used data from an ongoing study involving over a half a million adults aged between 30 and 79.

They focused on 416,000 of the participants who had been recruited between 2004 and 2008. These were then followed up for an average of almost nine years.

At the start of the study, 13% said that they ate eggs every day, while 9% said they never or rarely ate them.

After analysing the results, the researchers found that those who ate eggs on a daily basis had a 26% lower risk of suffering a haemorrhagic stroke, compared to those who did not eat eggs. They also had a 28% lower risk of dying from this type of stroke and an 18% lower risk of dying as a result of CVD overall.

The study also found that those who ate eggs every day had a 12% reduced risk of developing ischaemic heart disease compared to those who never/rarely ate them.

The researchers said that as this was an observational study, no firm conclusions can be drawn about cause and effect. However, they also pointed out that the study involved a large sample size and did take into account established and potential CVD risk factors.

"The present study finds that there is an association between moderate level of egg consumption (up to one egg per day) and a lower cardiac event rate," they concluded.

Details of these finding are published in the journal, Heart.