Eggs and IQ in Children: Do Eggs Make Kids Smarter? | Riot IQ
Oct 16, 2026·Advanced Topics & Research
Eggs and IQ in Children: Do Eggs Make Kids Smarter?
Eggs and IQ in children: trials giving babies an egg a day found no overall gain in development scores, and no trial has shown that eggs raise a child's IQ.
Dr. Russell T. WarneChief Scientist
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Eggs have not been shown to raise IQ in children. The two largest randomized trials, which gave babies one egg a day for six months in Malawi (660 children) and Guatemala (1,200 children), found no overall difference in development scores, and no egg trial has yet measured IQ itself.
That result surprises many parents, because eggs are full of nutrients the developing brain needs, and one early trial showed striking gains in growth. This page covers what eggs contain, what the egg-feeding trials found, the separate research on choline in pregnancy, studies of eggs and thinking in adults, and the confounds that make observational studies hard to read. It describes research and is not dietary or medical advice.
Why eggs are linked to brain development
Eggs supply many nutrients that matter for the brain. Prado and colleagues list "choline", riboflavin, vitamins B6 and B12, folate, zinc, protein and DHA (an omega-3 fat). Choline gets the most attention. It is a nutrient the body uses to build cell membranes and the chemical messenger acetylcholine, and in rodent studies giving extra choline to mothers during pregnancy produced lasting memory and attention benefits in their offspring.
The other reason is growth. In 2017, Iannotti and colleagues published the Lulun Project ("lulun" means egg in Kichwa), a randomized trial in highland Ecuador. Infants aged 6 to 9 months were given one egg a day for six months (83 children) or no intervention (80 children). The egg group grew more, with length-for-age z scores 0.63 higher, and stunting was 47% less common. Many researchers hoped the same nutrients would show up in children's development too, which is what later trials set out to test.
Two cautions followed. When the Lulun children were measured again about two years later, the growth advantage had disappeared. And a 2023 meta-analysis by Larson and colleagues, pooling seven studies with 3,575 children, found a much smaller average benefit of about half a centimetre in height. Lulun did not measure cognition.
What egg-feeding trials show about child development
Two trials have now tested child development directly, and both were large and randomized.
• Malawi (Mazira Project): Prado and colleagues randomized 660 children aged 6 to 9 months to an egg a day for six months or to a control group visited just as often. Blinded assessors gave them a standard developmental test and eye-tracking tasks of memory and attention. At the end, the groups did not differ on any developmental score, apart from fewer children with delayed fine motor skills in the egg group (10.6% versus 16.5%). A companion paper found no effect on linear growth either.
• Guatemala (Saqmolo' Project): Montenegro-Bethancourt and colleagues randomized 1,200 Maya infants aged 6 to 9 months to standard nutrition care or standard care plus one egg a day for six months. The egg group ate a more varied diet, but there was no difference in the main outcome, a parent-reported global development score. Stunting was actually somewhat more common in the egg group.
The Malawi team did find a pattern worth noting. The egg seemed to help children in better-off families, such as those with more household wealth and better-educated mothers, more than the most vulnerable children. The authors warned that with so many comparisons, some of these findings may be due to chance.
Funding is also worth knowing about. The Guatemala trial was paid for through an investigator-initiated grant from the Egg Nutrition Center, an industry body, and still reported a null result.
Choline in pregnancy and child cognition
The strongest positive findings come from choline given to mothers, which is a different question from feeding eggs to children.
• The Cornell feeding study: Caudill and colleagues randomized 26 women in the third trimester to a controlled diet with 480 mg of choline a day (about the recommended intake) or 930 mg a day. Infants in the higher-choline group were faster on a test of information processing speed across the first 13 months. At age 7, Bahnfleth and colleagues retested 20 of the children and found better sustained attention in the higher-choline group. The follow-up was funded in part by Balchem, a choline supplement maker.
• A larger null trial: Cheatham and colleagues gave 140 pregnant women a phosphatidylcholine supplement (the main form of choline in food) or placebo from mid-pregnancy to three months after birth. At 10 and 12 months, the 99 tested infants showed no differences in short-term memory, long-term memory, language or global development.
• IQ itself: Signore and colleagues measured choline in the blood of 404 mothers during pregnancy and in cord blood, then tested the children's IQ at age 5. Choline levels within the normal range showed no association with Full Scale IQ.
In Project Viva, Boeke and colleagues found that mothers in the top quarter of choline intake in mid-pregnancy had children who scored 1.4 points higher than the bottom quarter on a visual memory test at age 7 (about a third of that test's standard deviation). That is a modest association in an observational study, and the outcome was a memory test rather than an IQ score.
Eggs and thinking in adults
In adults, the evidence is observational. In the Kuopio study, Ylilauri and colleagues followed 2,497 Finnish men for almost 22 years. Eating more eggs was not linked to a higher risk of dementia; each extra half egg a day came with a hazard ratio of 0.89, with a confidence interval that just included no effect. In the 480 men given cognitive tests, egg intake was associated with better scores on tests of executive function and verbal fluency.
A 2025 systematic review by Sultan and colleagues found 11 studies of whole eggs and cognition in healthy adults, nearly all observational. Moderate egg intake was sometimes linked to better memory or lower dementia risk, but the findings were inconsistent and the studies too different to pool.
The confounds behind eggs and intelligence
Observational links between egg intake and test scores are hard to interpret. In many countries, families that can afford eggs every day also tend to have more money and more schooling, and both predict higher test scores in their own right. Egg eating also tracks overall diet quality. That is why randomized trials carry most of the weight here, and why their null results matter.
The trials have their own limits. Six months of eggs in infancy is a short exposure. Development tests in infancy are not IQ tests, and no trial has followed children long enough to give them a full IQ test. Benefits in specific groups, such as children with very poor diets or mothers low in choline, cannot be ruled out.
For the wider picture of food and intelligence, see our overview of whether diet or nutrition affects IQ. DHA, one of the nutrients in eggs, has its own evidence base, covered in our page on fish oil and IQ.
Frequently asked questions
Do eggs make children smarter?
No trial has shown that they do. Large randomized trials in Malawi and Guatemala that gave infants an egg a day found no overall improvement in development scores.
Are eggs good for a baby's brain?
Eggs contain nutrients the brain needs, including choline, protein, vitamin B12 and DHA. That makes them a nutritious food, but it has not translated into measurable gains in development in the trials so far.
Does choline in pregnancy raise a child's IQ?
It has not been shown to. A small, well-controlled trial found faster infant processing speed and better attention at age 7 with higher choline intake, but a larger supplement trial found no benefit, and no trial has reported IQ.
Do eggs help memory in older adults?
Some observational studies link moderate egg intake to better memory or verbal fluency, but these cannot rule out the effects of overall diet, education and health.
Who should I ask about my child's diet?
A pediatrician or registered dietitian can advise on a child's diet, including when to introduce eggs and how to handle egg allergy.
The takeaway
Eggs are a nutritious food, and in one Ecuadorian trial they boosted growth for a time. The best evidence on eggs and IQ in children, though, comes from two large randomized trials, and neither found that an egg a day improved development. The choline findings are interesting but rest on small studies with mixed results. If you want a reliable measure of your own reasoning ability, take a full-length online IQ test.
References
1. Prado, E. L., Maleta, K., Caswell, B. L., George, M., Oakes, L. M., DeBolt, M. C., Bragg, M. G., Arnold, C. D., Iannotti, L. L., Lutter, C. K., & Stewart, C. P. (2020). Early child development outcomes of a randomized trial providing 1 egg per day to children age 6 to 15 months in Malawi. The Journal of Nutrition, 150(7), 1933-1942. [doi.org/10.1093/jn/nxaa088](. doi.org
2. Montenegro-Bethancourt, G., Proaño, G. V., Jimenez, E. Y., Wallace, T. C., Steiber, A., Ma, X., Ji, M., & Rohloff, P. (2026). Effect of eggs on Maya child development and growth: The Saqmolo' Project randomized clinical trial. The Lancet Regional Health - Americas, 54, 101339. [doi.org/10.1016/j.lana.2025.101339](. doi.org
3. Iannotti, L. L., Lutter, C. K., Stewart, C. P., Gallegos Riofrío, C. A., Malo, C., Reinhart, G., Palacios, A., Karp, C., Chapnick, M., Cox, K., & Waters, W. F. (2017). Eggs in early complementary feeding and child growth: A randomized controlled trial. Pediatrics, 140(1), e20163459. [doi.org/10.1542/peds.2016-3459](. doi.org
4. Iannotti, L. L., Chapnick, M., Nicholas, J., Gallegos-Riofrio, C. A., Moreno, P., Douglas, K., Habif, D., Cui, Y., Stewart, C., Lutter, C. K., & Waters, W. F. (2020). Egg intervention effect on linear growth no longer present after two years. Maternal & Child Nutrition, 16(2), e12925. [doi.org/10.1111/mcn.12925](. doi.org
5. Larson, E. A., Zhao, Z., Bader-Larsen, K. S., & Magkos, F. (2023). Egg consumption and growth in children: A meta-analysis of interventional trials. Frontiers in Nutrition, 10, 1278753. [doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2023.1278753](. doi.org
6. Stewart, C. P., Caswell, B., Iannotti, L., Lutter, C., Arnold, C. D., Chipatala, R., Prado, E. L., & Maleta, K. (2019). The effect of eggs on early child growth in rural Malawi: The Mazira Project randomized controlled trial. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 110(4), 1026-1033. [doi.org/10.1093/ajcn/nqz163](. doi.org
7. Caudill, M. A., Strupp, B. J., Muscalu, L., Nevins, J. E. H., & Canfield, R. L. (2018). Maternal choline supplementation during the third trimester of pregnancy improves infant information processing speed: A randomized, double-blind, controlled feeding study. The FASEB Journal, 32(4), 2172-2180. [doi.org/10.1096/fj.201700692RR](. doi.org
8. Bahnfleth, C. L., Strupp, B. J., Caudill, M. A., & Canfield, R. L. (2022). Prenatal choline supplementation improves child sustained attention: A 7-year follow-up of a randomized controlled feeding trial. The FASEB Journal, 36(1), e22054. [doi.org/10.1096/fj.202101217R](. doi.org
9. Cheatham, C. L., Goldman, B. D., Fischer, L. M., da Costa, K. A., Reznick, J. S., & Zeisel, S. H. (2012). Phosphatidylcholine supplementation in pregnant women consuming moderate-choline diets does not enhance infant cognitive function: A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 96(6), 1465-1472. [doi.org/10.3945/ajcn.112.037184](. doi.org
10. Signore, C., Ueland, P. M., Troendle, J., & Mills, J. L. (2008). Choline concentrations in human maternal and cord blood and intelligence at 5 y of age. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 87(4), 896-902. [doi.org/10.1093/ajcn/87.4.896](. doi.org
11. Boeke, C. E., Gillman, M. W., Hughes, M. D., Rifas-Shiman, S. L., Villamor, E., & Oken, E. (2013). Choline intake during pregnancy and child cognition at age 7 years. American Journal of Epidemiology, 177(12), 1338-1347. [doi.org/10.1093/aje/kws395](. doi.org
12. Ylilauri, M. P., Voutilainen, S., Lönnroos, E., Mursu, J., Virtanen, H. E., Koskinen, T. T., Salonen, J. T., Tuomainen, T. P., & Virtanen, J. K. (2017). Association of dietary cholesterol and egg intakes with the risk of incident dementia or Alzheimer disease: The Kuopio Ischaemic Heart Disease Risk Factor Study. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 105(2), 476-484. [doi.org/10.3945/ajcn.116.146753](. doi.org
13. Sultan, N., Kellow, N. J., Tuck, C. J., Cheng, E., MacMahon, C., & Biesiekierski, J. R. (2025). Egg intake and cognitive function in healthy adults: A systematic review of the literature. The Journal of Nutrition, Health & Aging, 29(12), 100696. [doi.org/10.1016/j.jnha.2025.100696](. doi.org
Hero image: Eggs (5237987733), by Moyan Brenn from Italy, CC BY 2.0. Via Wikimedia Commons.
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