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New research published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine found that higher butter consumption was associated with a 15% higher risk of mortality, while eating more plant-based oils was linked to a 16% reduction in mortality.
Dr. Yu Zhang, the study’s coauthor and a researcher at the Channing Division of Network Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, states:
Seventeen percent is quite a big change, especially when you look at the public health perspective. Imagine how many deaths we can reduce in the general population.
The study looked at 33 years’ worth of dietary data from over 221,000 participants in the Nurses’ Health Study (NHS), Nurses’ Health Study II (NHS II), and Health Professionals Follow-Up Study. Walter Willett, a coauthor of the study who has spent 40 years studying how diet impacts the development of major diseases, explains:
For some reason that is not clear to me, a myth has been floating around the internet that butter is a healthy fat, but there is no good evidence to support this.
The plant-based oils mentioned in the study include soybean, canola, and olive oil. Cardiologist Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, director of the Food is Medicine Institute at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, states:
Olive oil, canola oil, and soybean oil were each more consistently associated with benefit: a lower risk of dying. These findings add to a large body of scientific literature on the health benefits of these plant oils, whose positive effects have been demonstrated in both large observational studies and dozens of randomized trials.
The evidence is clear—choosing more plant-based foods is better for your body! In January, a study published in the journal Neurology found that those eating a quarter serving or more of processed red meats, like bacon and hot dogs, per day face a 13% higher risk of developing dementia than those consuming less than one-tenth of a serving daily.
There’s never been a better time to start adding more plant-based foods to your routine. Download our FREE How to Eat Veg guide to get started today.