The cooking fat choice might influence longevity, according to recent three decades-long research that followed more than 200,000 lives.
While immortality is still not an option for mankind right now, plenty of things exist that can help tilt the odds in favor of someone reaching the age of a hundred: most of these things are quite simple.
The Mass General Brigham, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Broad Institute researchers found contrasting effects of butter versus plant oils on human health, which was published in JAMA Internal Medicine in March. And the results are quite telling.
The name sounds like a "population-based cohort study," which collected dietary and health data over some three decades from more than 200,000 people, giving very solid data for analysis. Of fortunate nature for Harvard, all subjects belonged to the Nurses' Health Study, the Nurses' Health Study II, and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study. For each of these studies, participants were asked by questionnaire every four years about the frequency with which they consumed certain types of food.
The team extrapolated from this various types of butter consumption—margarines, spreadable butters on foods and bread, cooking and frying butter, etc.—as well as plant oils.
The researchers accounted for all participants who died during the course of the study and ascribed causes of death to them. They then proceeded to perform statistical analyses against varying levels of dietary intake to determine if butter or oil consumers were more susceptible to an early death.
Additionally, plant oil intake was associated with favorable health outcomes, having an increased chance of lower overall, cancer, and cardiovascular mortality; high butter consumption was associated with a decreased chance of survival for all-cause mortality, more so with cancer mortality.
The prevalence of adverse effects of butter is unearthed as far back as 2022, wherein olive oil consumption of not less than 7 grams a day has been found health-enhancing if consumers avoided animal fats like butter, margarine, and mayonnaise, according to the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Having noted this, however, Gervacio says that not all oils act the same way when being subjected to heat. "For frying or grilling, you need oils that could withstand high temperatures. Avocado or even canola works best in that case," she explained. "For salad dressings or drizzling on veggies, use extra virgin olive oil."
The authors noted that the findings and the very construct of their study depend, largely, on a sample of participants that are "mainly health professionals," a demographic that may not be truly representative of the U.S. population. But, the comment further adds, "In the future, they would like to study the biological mechanisms of how this dietary change bears such an outsized effect."
This is the kind of rhetoric that Sarah Berry, professor of nutritional sciences at King's College London, hopes this sort of research will go to dismantle. "The study shows that high butter consumption is linked to increased cancer and total mortality, while plant-based oils are linked to a lower risk of overall mortality and death from cardiovascular disease and cancer," Berry stated.
This much larger and longer-term study finds exactly the opposite. The authors go on to give more evidence that seed oil consumption benefits health and that butter, as good as it is, would be for occasional use only."