An international team of scientists says they cannot find a reliable link between a moderate consumption of butter and a significant increase in mortality rates. In fact, they say that it may have a slightly positive effect on the prevention of type 2 diabetes. The researching team, led by Dr. Laura Pimpin and formed by professionals from the United States and Australia, analyzed the data provided by nine studies with participants from 11 countries and concluded that butter is not that dangerous. The study was published online on June 30, 2016, in the PLOS ONE journal.
The study also means great news for French People, number one butter consumers in the world, and for India, which produces more butter than all the other countries in the world combined.
When people go to a nutritionist or a fitness adviser wanting to lose weight and improve their health, one of the first things the specialists tell them is to cut off butter. However, Dr. Pimpin’s team wanted to know if butter had an adverse effect on health.
Butter is usually associated with higher mortality, CVD, and diabetes
To get the information, the group of specialists searched an international database for studies that included a detailed record of the participant’s diet, fatality rates, cardio vascular complications and diabetes occurrences. Since there are no randomized studies that focus on butter consumption, the researching team used the Newcastle-Ottawa scale to filter the quality of the research in the data pool of 5,770 possible abstracts.
In the end, they selected nine papers. Which accurately translates into 636,000 participants, and 15 country specific cohorts plus many other multi-country studies. The list includes 11 countries like The United States, The United Kingdom, Sweden, France, Germany, and others. All the papers were published between 2005 and 2015. The research team separated the results into three main categories; all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease (CVD) and Type 2 diabetes.
A lot of people believe that eating butter, even in moderate amounts, is unhealthy and overall risky. To prove this, the research team took as an example 379,763 participants from whom 28,271 died. Now, when they compared the average butter consumption, 14g a day, to these statistics, they found butter accounted for 1% increase in risks for the causes of death. In other words, in the total percentage of causes of death, the consumption of the dairy product only represented 1% of that. The effects were also minimum when talking about CVD. 9,783 participants out of 175,612 developed cardiovascular problems, but butter intake was the least of the worries always overshadowed by sedentary lifestyles, stress, and other urgent risk factors. Lastly, the report says the consumption of the dairy product was associated with a lower story of diagnosis, around 4% per daily 14g serving.
“In this systematic review and meta-analysis of prospective studies, we found a small positive association between butter consumption and all-cause mortality, no significant association with incident CVD or CVD subtypes, and a modest inverse association with type 2,” reads the paper.
All in all, the keyword is moderation. Eating small portions of butter every day won’t cast a dead sentence on people, and it might even help prevent diabetes type 2. The researchers acknowledge specific studies are necessary to clarify further the effects dairy products have on the human body.
Source: PLOS ONE