Researchers find little added health danger for those who consume butter
THURSDAY, June 30, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Butter may not be the unhealthy food many Americans believe it to be; however, that doesn’t mean that butter provides any real health benefit, according to research published online June 29 in PLOS ONE.
A research team reviewed data from nine studies that included 636,151 people living in 15 countries. Average butter consumption for individuals in the study ranged from about one-third of a serving to just over three servings per day. One serving equals about one tablespoon of butter, the team said.
The researchers found that eating butter was only weakly associated with increased risk in all-cause mortality (relative risk [RR], 1.01; 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 1.00 to 1.03; P = 0.045) and not associated at all with cardiovascular disease (RR, 1.00; 95 percent CI, 0.98 to 1.02; P = 0.704). There was a slight association with protection against diabetes (RR, 0.96; 95 percent CI, 0.93 to 0.99; P = 0.021).
“Overall, our results suggest that butter should neither be demonized nor considered ‘back’ as a route to good health,” senior author Dariush Mozaffarian, M.D., dean of the Tufts University School of Nutrition Science and Policy in Boston, said in a university news release.
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