Why is butter bad for you

As butter contains a lot of saturated fat, people with high cholesterol should be mindful of how much they consume each day. However, a review of papers from suggests that people should focus on maintaining a favorable ratio between LDL and high-density lipoprotein HDL levels. Despite this, the AHA still recommend that people with high cholesterol monitor their consumption of butter.

They suggest replacing it with healthy fat alternatives such as avocados and olive oil. High cholesterol may not always produce noticeable symptoms.

Therefore, some people may need a blood test to check their serum cholesterol levels. It is essential to monitor cholesterol in the blood as high levels can lead to a condition called atherosclerosis.

While many people use medication following a high cholesterol diagnosis, the following lifestyle changes can also help:. Oils that are high in unsaturated fat but low in saturated and trans fats are heart-healthy substitutes for butter. These include avocado, olive, and sunflower oils. Some people use margarine in place of butter, but there is conflicting evidence regarding this replacement. Margarine uses vegetable oil, so it often contains less saturated fat than butter, which contains animal-based fat.

However, hard margarine can also contain saturated and trans fats, so it is best to check the nutrition labels. If a person has high cholesterol, they can ask their doctor about using stanol-based spreads or sterols, which may help reduce cholesterol levels. Looking at the nutritional information on food packaging can also help people make healthful choices. The aim should be to limit the intake of saturated and trans fats as much as possible.

Some people with high cholesterol may need medications, but doctors will usually always recommend these additional dietary changes initially:. Recent research counters the original belief that cholesterol in the diet strongly influences blood cholesterol. Being mindful of saturated and trans fat is essential though, as these may contribute to the rise in blood cholesterol. People with high cholesterol may have a higher risk of certain conditions and diseases such as atherosclerosis, stroke, and heart attack.

By comparison, you could eat a hearty 1. Of course, fat is more satiating, which brings us to our next topic. Butter is a better choice compared to margarine which may contain trace amounts of trans fats known to raise bad LDL cholesterol and increase the risk of cardiovascular disease and other highly processed fat substitutes, says Bazilian.

Still, plenty of alternatives like olive or avocado oil are lower in saturated fat and serve up added health benefits. Calorically, butter is basically the same as olive or avocado oil it may even contain about 30 fewer calories per serving.

But the distribution of types of fat in each ingredient differ. As noted earlier, butter has the highest proportion of saturated fat, a high intake of which is associated with increased blood cholesterol levels, whereas olive and avocado oils contain more monounsaturated fats that promote heart health. It also has a slightly sweet, nutty flavor. When buying traditional butter, opt for organic and grass-fed varieties, if possible. Grass-fed butter is higher in conjugated linoleic acid, or CLA, a fatty acid which may be associated with fat loss in humans.

Keys had made a name for himself during World War II by developing the K ration, and after the war turned his attention to the relationship between diet and health , particularly heart disease. Then, as now, heart disease was the leading cause of death in America, but nobody knew exactly why. Keys led the seminal Seven Countries Study, which for the first time documented that the incidence and mortality rates of coronary heart disease varied as much as tenfold among countries, with the lowest rates in Crete.

The study, which began in the s, continues even today. He found that saturated fat consumption was strongly associated with regional rates of heart disease, but that total fat intake was not. Indeed, total fat intake in Crete was just as high as in Finland, which had the highest rates of heart disease at that time. Keys suggested that it was the type of fat, as well as the Mediterranean diet in general, that spelled the difference in heart disease risk.

Keys delivered his opinions with the force of fact. Yet based on the well-recognized limitations of cross-country studies, Keys was smart enough to conclude that this early evidence did not prove cause and effect, but rather suggested a need for further research, especially in cohort studies examining individuals within populations.

Indeed, many better-designed studies have since proven that total dietary fat has no effect on heart disease. Scientists fed monkeys diets high in saturated fat and watched them develop atherosclerosis.

Researchers in Finland fed butter to patients in one mental hospital, while those in another got soybean oil—and the patients eating the vegetable oil had a lower risk of heart attack. On the other hand, several other trials around that time replaced butter and other saturated fats with vegetable oils and saw no significant benefits.

Decades passed; data accumulated. This led to recommendations to replace saturated fat with polyunsaturated fat—a trend that some scientists believe has been responsible for significant declines in rates of cardiovascular mortality in the United States. By the s, Keys and Hegsted, among other scientists, concluded that different types of dietary fat had varying effects on blood cholesterol levels, and that different types of cholesterol had varying effects on heart disease.

Unfortunately, amid all these nuanced research results, during the s and s conventional wisdom and national guidelines in the U. In , the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation launched a social marketing campaign called Project LEAN Low-Fat Eating for America Now , encouraging Americans to reduce total fat intake to 30 percent of their diet, and spreading the message through advertising and supermarket promotions. The public ate it up, so to speak.

Our bodies digest these refined carbohydrates and starches very quickly, causing an insulin spike. These relentless sugar highs and lows lead to overeating and weight gain , raising the risk for heart disease and diabetes. Dariush Mozaffarian, dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition, Tufts University and adjunct associate professor of epidemiology.

Polyunsaturated fat intake, however, was found to be clearly protective. It was against this backdrop that the Annals of Internal Medicine study created such a stir.

Hu first learned of the Annals meta-analysis a few days before it was published, when The New York Times sent him a copy and asked for comment.