Butter is not bad for you, and it does not increase the risk of developing heart disease, research has found.
A major study by scientists from Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts, has shown that eating a tablespoon of butter a day has no ‘significant’ link with heart disease and strokes.
The study also found that butter could even marginally help to reduce the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes.
The research is one of the biggest studies ever conducted on the effects of butter on health. This dairy product has for long been accused of being ‘bad for you’.
The results of the study add weight to demands for an end to the ‘demonizing’ of all saturated fats – not only butter.
The study follows reports in June 2016 that the UK Government is reconsidering its advice to ‘restrict saturated fat intake’. This is due to two other studies also having found no link to heart disease.
For over thirty years the public has been warned by official health guidelines to avoid eating butter and full fat milk. This advice was given in the hope of reducing the number of deaths from heart disease and stroke.
First issued in 1983, the UK population was asked to significantly reduce its saturated fat intake. Now that advice is changing, no doubt much to the relief of the dairy industry.
There has been steadily growing evidence that saturated fats are not to blame for heart disease. In fact there has never been any real evidence.
Indeed, some experts claim that the 1983 guidelines have actually ‘increased’ obesity levels by encouraging the consumption of more and more carbohydrates. With the disaccharide fructose being added to many processed foods, the suspicion now is that this particular sugar is the main cause of the obesity epidemic.
The Tufts University study analysed the results of nine other studies published since 2005, from a total of 15 countries. In all, nearly 640,000 adults were covered.
The scientists found that a daily serving of butter of roughly a tablespoon was associated with only a 1 per cent higher risk of death. However, butter consumption was found to have no ‘significant’ association with any kind of cardiovascular disease. It has no link with coronary heart disease or stroke.
A smaller sample produced results indicating that eating butter every day was associated with a 4 per cent lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes. However, the researchers did say that this needs further investigation.
The scientists ended their report suggesting that their findings support only minor changes in public dietary guidelines on butter consumption.
It appears that health scientists are at last beginning to ask ‘serious’ questions about the reliability of current health guidelines. High levels of obesity do not just happen; they are caused by the foods people are eating.
Man-made products such as polyunsaturated spreads and cooking oils are looking like the chief causes of illnesses such as heart disease and stroke. Butter, especially that made from the milk of grass-fed cows has far more nutrients than any man-made alternatives.
Is it really no wonder that butter should no longer be demonized?