The study, which followed the dietary choices of more than 200,000 people over 30 years, found that diets higher in butter but low in plant oils were associated with elevated risk of mortality.
The study, which followed the dietary choices of more than 200,000 people over 30 years, found that diets higher in butter but low in plant oils were associated with elevated risk of mortality.
People who consume plant-based oil instead of butter may experience beneficial health effects and even have a lower risk of premature death, according to a new study by investigators from Mass General Brigham, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. The researchers examined diet and health data from 200,000 people followed for more than 30 years and found that higher intake of plant-based oils, especially soybean, canola, and olive oil, was associated with lower total, cancer, and cardiovascular disease mortality, whereas butter intake was associated with increased risk of total and cancer mortality. The results are published in JAMA Internal Medicine and presented simultaneously at the American Heart Association EPI/Lifestyle Scientific Sessions.
"What's surprising is the magnitude of the association that we found — we saw a 17% lower risk of death when we modeled swapping butter with plant-based oils in daily diet. That is a pretty huge effect on health," said study lead author Yu Zhang, MBBS, research assistant at the Channing Division of Network Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital, a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system. Zhang is also a student in the Department of Epidemiology at Harvard Chan School.
Read more at Mass General Brigham
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