Butter linked to higher death risk while plant-based oils may boost health

Replacing butter with plant-based oils may boost your health and reduce the risk of dying early, new research suggests.

The study, which was published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, included about 221,000 people in the US who were middle-aged or older. Their diets and health outcomes were tracked for up to 33 years.

During that time, people who ate the most butter had a 15 per cent higher risk of death than those who ate the least amount of butter. 

People who ate the most plant-based oils had a mortality risk that was 16 per cent lower than those who ate the least plant-based oils.

Swapping butter with plant-based oils was associated with a 17 per cent lower risk of death, the analysis found.

“That is a pretty huge effect on health,” Yu Zhang, the study’s lead author and a research assistant at Brigham and Women's Hospital in the US, said in a statement.

Not all plant-based oils are created equal. Olive oil, soybean oil, and rapeseed or canola oil were all tied to lower risks of death overall as well as from cancer and heart disease – but the study did not find any link between health risks and corn or safflower oil.

They also did not analyse palm or coconut oils, which are high in saturated fats that have been linked to cardiovascular diseases.

Notably, some of these plant-based oils are considered seed oils, which have drawn the ire of wellness influencers – and some politicians – in recent years.

Seed oils are made from whole seeds that are processed to extract oil.

Critics have labelled oils from corn, cottonseed, rapeseed, soy, safflower, sunflower, grapeseed, and rice bran as the “hateful eight,” alleging that they are behind the surge in chronic diseases like type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

But many foods that