Eating more healthy fats like those in fish and nuts might help improve your cholesterol levels—lowering the bad kind and raising the good kind—if you're a US adult who hasn't had a heart attack.

If you swap just a little bit of butter or fatty meat in your diet with healthier fats like those in nuts or fish, you might lower your bad cholesterol and reduce your risk of heart disease by a small amount.

Eating less saturated fat, like from butter and red meat, tends to go along with lower levels of 'bad' cholesterol in the blood.

People in the U.S. who eat more of the healthy fats (like those in fish and nuts) compared to their total fat intake tend to live longer, even if they eat the same amount of fat overall — and this holds true no matter their age, gender, income, or health habits.

If you swap out butter and fatty meats for oils like olive or sunflower oil, you might slightly lower your chance of having a heart problem — but the evidence isn’t super strong.

Eating foods rich in monounsaturated fats, like olive oil or avocados, doesn't seem to make heart disease risk higher or lower based on this analysis.