A new study found that butter does not help your heart at all if you are planning to trim saturated fats from your diet, instead, researchers recommend some healthier alternatives.
The study was published in the Journal of the America College of Cardiology. The cardiologists involved in the researched said that if people substituted quality carbohydrates from whole grains, fruits and vegetables, lives could be saved.
Adela Hruby, co-author of the study and researcher at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, explained that people cannot just drop a very large number of calories out of the blue, it is not healthy. Instead, the researchers recommends that people should replace those saturated fats with something else, and that will make their transition much healthier.
The team of researchers analyzed medical records from more than 125,000 persons twice in order to reach their conclusion. The two prior studies from which they based their research were The Health Professionals Study and the Nurses’ Health Study. All of the participants who signed up for this study did not suffer from heart disease, diabetes or cancer. Cardiologists tracked all their daily habits, and their diets in particular.
The team based their results on food questionnaires that were completed during the two studies by the volunteers. Four years later, heart disease was found in more than 7,500 participants. The authors then compared what food did the persons with a higher risk of developing heart disease eat, compared to the healthy participants.
Interestingly, researchers have found that the risk of heart disease decreased by 25% in the participants who replaced 10% of their calories from saturated fats with polyunsaturated fats. The later can be found in nuts, soybeans, wheat, coffee beans and vegetables. By replacing the saturated fats with monounsaturated fats the risk of heart disease dropped by 15%, while whole-grain reduced the risks by nearly 10%. Monounsaturated fats can be found in olive oil, sunflower oil, avocado, corn, and peanut butter.
However, there are saturated fats that have no effects on reducing or increasing the risk for heart disease. These are: white bread, butter, red meat, and white rice. The team warned that just because these foods do not have a negative impact over your heart’s health, does not mean you should include them in your diet over healthier options.
The study did not, however, looked for associations between other conditions than cardiovascular diseases and saturated fat consumption.
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