You’ve heard it before: For better health, reduce the amount of saturated fat in your diet. Try to eat more plant-based foods. Recently, a large, long-term study published in JAMA Internal Medicine added to the evidence behind that advice. Researchers looked at the eating habits of more than 220,000 people over 33 years to see how much butter they consumed as well as their intake of plant-based oils such as safflower, soybean, corn, canola and olive oils.
The study found that those who ate the most butter had a 15% higher risk of dying of any cause during the study compared with those who ate the least butter. Those who consumed the highest amounts of plant-based oils had a 16% lower risk of dying of any cause than those who consumed the lowest amounts of those oils.
More specifically, higher intake of canola, soybean and olive oils offered a significantly reduced risk of death. This was not seen with corn or safflower oils. Consuming higher amounts of plant-based oils also was linked to a lower risk of death from cancer and cardiovascular disease, while eating more butter was associated with a higher risk of dying of cancer.
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