Vegetable Oils Better For Your Heart Than Dairy Butter, Confirms New Study

A new study says that switching from saturated animal-derived fats like dairy butter to unsaturated oils from olives and nuts is better for your heart.

Swapping saturated animal fats for unsaturated plant-based fats affects the fat composition in a person’s blood, which in turn reduces their risk of developing cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. The new research confirms both the possibility of measuring diet-related fat changes in the blood and the impact of such changes on long-term health.

Nature Medicine published the study earlier this month. Scientists from universities all over the world collaborated on it, including senior author Clemens Wittenbecher, the research leader at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden.

“Our study confirms with even more certainty the health benefits of a diet high in unsaturated plant fats such as the Mediterranean diet and could help provide targeted dietary advice to those who would benefit most from changing their eating habits,” Wittenbecher told Science Daily.

How dietary changes affect health markers

Butter melting in a pan — Adobe Stock Butter is a widely used fat in cooking

While the World Health Organization (WHO), vegan healthcare professionals, and even certain governments already encourage the adoption of more plant-based diets, existing studies on the precise health benefits of these foods were limited.

This new research carefully analyzed fats in the blood, or lipids, using the extremely detailed scientific methods of lipidomics. It cross-referenced new dietary intervention studies with previous cohort studies featuring long-term health tracking.

“Diet is so complex that it is often difficult to draw conclusive evidence from a single study”, continued Wittenbecher. “Our approach of using lipidomics to combine intervention studies with highly controlled diets and prospective cohort studies with long-term health tracking can overcome current limitations in nutrition research.”

A major review published earlier this year assessed 23 years of existing studies on vegetarian diets and health to conclude that eating more plant-based foods lowered the risk of heart disease and cancer, as well as “significantly” improving overall health.