9,444 community-dwelling adults (mean age 51.7) from a rural Anhui-province cohort (recruited 2003-05), 14.1-year follow-up, 814 deaths. Compared with <3 eggs/week, 3-6/week showed no association with all-cause mortality (RR 0.99), but >6 eggs/week was associated with 35% higher mortality (RR 1.35, 95% CI 1.05-1.74, P=0.021), rising to a 2.16-fold risk among participants with BMI ≥21.2 kg/m². Egg consumption did not differ by BMI/lipid profile between groups. Limitations: single baseline FFQ, rural/low-education population limits generalizability, no cause-specific mortality data, possible reverse causality and residual confounding.
relevance_note: A genuine Asian harm signal at high habitual intake in a lower-SES rural population — the counterweight the “eggs are fine in Asia” narrative needs, and a candidate BMI-effect-modification data point for the “for whom” question.