Dr. Robert H. Eckel, a professor of medicine at the University of Colorado who wrote an editorial accompanying the study, called the work far more comprehensive than previous reviews. There is “enough data to make a strong statement that eggs and overall dietary cholesterol intake remain important in affecting the risk of cardiovascular disease, and more so the risk of all-cause mortality,” he wrote.

The authors say that the average cholesterol consumption of Americans has not changed much over the last few decades — about 300 milligrams a day. But even at that level, they found, dietary cholesterol is tied to an increased risk for cardiovascular problems.

There are many other risk factors for heart disease besides diet, and the numbers the authors cite indicate the percentage of additional risk from a high-cholesterol diet, so the effect is not striking. But because heart disease is the most common cause of death in the United States — more common than all forms of cancer combined — even a small relative increase in rates of illness means a large increase in the number of deaths.

“This study takes into account the general quality of the diet and adjusts for it,” said Norrina B. Allen, the lead author of the new study and an associate professor of epidemiology at Northwestern. “We really were focused on the independent effects of eggs and dietary cholesterol. For example, healthier people tend to eat more eggs because they feel there’s a lot of protein in them, but even for healthy people on healthy diets, the harmful effect of eggs and cholesterol was consistent.”

She noted that not all people are affected in the same way by dietary cholesterol, and that the relationship between the amount of cholesterol consumed and the amount in the blood is complex and varies from person to person, depending on metabolic and genetic factors. Some people can eat a lot of eggs and little of the cholesterol goes into the blood. “Our study examined dietary cholesterol at the population level,” she said, “but for individuals there will be a lot more variation in the relationship between dietary cholesterol and heart disease.”