While there are plenty of things that go into maintaining your health, it’s hard to overstate how important a balanced diet can be. Eating the right foods may help reduce the risk of certain illnesses like cancer or boost your overall brain health. But part of keeping the balance means cutting back on or completely removing specific things from your diet if they pose a potentially serious problem. Now, new research is warning that butter could be shaving years off of your life.
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Eating butter can increase mortality risk by 15 percent.
In a study published this month in JAMA Internal Medicine, a team of researchers looked at data from three separate major health studies that included information from 221,054 participants. Every four years, each participant reported how often they ate specific foods, spanning a period of over 30 years.
Using the data, the researchers estimated how much butter and plant oil each participant was eating. They looked at different foods and preparations—including frying, baking, and sautéing—to help estimate amounts and frequency. They also recorded which participants died and why.
Results of the analysis found that participants who ate the most butter had a 15 percent higher death risk than the group who reported eating it the least. At the same time, the biggest consumers of plant oils were 16 percent less at risk of death than the group who ate the least.
The team then went a step further to determine what the results of a dietary change might look like. Ultimately, this brought about similar results.
“What’s surprising is the magnitude of the association that we found: We saw a 17 percent lower risk of death when we modeled swapping butter with plant-based oils in daily diet. That is a pretty huge effect on health,” Yu Zhang, PHD, research assistant at the Channing Division of Network Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and the study’s lead author, said in a press release.
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What should you cook with instead of butter?
The team admitted that the study had a few limitations, including that the participants were all healthcare professionals and likely did not consume a typical American diet (high in processed foods). However, they said that based on the large sample size, they could still make some recommendations.
“People might want to consider that a simple dietary swap—replacing butter with soybean or olive oil—can lead to significant long-term health benefits,” Daniel Wang, MD, one of the study’s authors from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and assistant professor in the Department of Nutrition at Harvard Chan School. “From a public health perspective, this is a substantial number of deaths from cancer or from other chronic diseases that could be prevented.”
Should you entirely cut out butter from your diet?
With such stark findings, it might seem best to avoid butter altogether when eating and cooking. However, the researchers specified this wasn’t the case.
“We are not suggesting that people should avoid butter entirely, but we are recommending that even a small reduction in butter in replacement for plant-based oils in a daily diet could lead to very substantial, long-term health benefits,” Zhang told CNN.
While other oils still contain fats, butter lacks some of the upsides of eating plant or seed oils.
“Butter is very high in saturated fat, approximately 2/3 of the fat, and it contains almost none of the beneficial, essential polysaturated fats,” Walter Willett, PhD, professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and one of the study’s co-authors, told CNN in an email.
“Our findings don’t mean that we should never consume butter, but it is best to use it just when its specific flavor is important, not as a primary source of fat,” Willett clarified. “For me, this is the several times a year that I have lobster…Butter is absolutely essential!”
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The takeaway:
In a new study, researchers looked at data from more than 220,000 participants over 30 years to establish a link between mortality rates and butter consumption. Results of the analysis found that those who ate the most butter had a 15 percent higher risk of dying than those who ate the least, while participants who ate the largest volume of plant oils were 16 percent less likely to die than those who ate the least.
The team also determined that swapping in plant oil for butter in a person’s diet could reduce mortality risk by 17 percent. Researchers said that while it wasn’t necessary to entirely eliminate butter from your diet, it might be worth swapping in plant oils like canola and olive oils for everyday use.
Content shared from bestlifeonline.com.