Does butter cause heart problems?
Meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies evaluating the association of saturated fat with cardiovascular disease
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Surprising Findings
Stroke risk was actually 19% lower in high saturated fat consumers (RR 0.81, p=0.11), though not statistically significant.
Most people assume all fats are bad for blood vessels — but this suggests saturated fat might not harm (and could even slightly protect) against strokes, contradicting decades of fear-mongering.
Practical Takeaways
Don’t panic and ditch butter — but don’t go overboard either. Focus on eating whole foods and avoid replacing saturated fats with sugar or refined carbs.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Surprising Findings
Stroke risk was actually 19% lower in high saturated fat consumers (RR 0.81, p=0.11), though not statistically significant.
Most people assume all fats are bad for blood vessels — but this suggests saturated fat might not harm (and could even slightly protect) against strokes, contradicting decades of fear-mongering.
Practical Takeaways
Don’t panic and ditch butter — but don’t go overboard either. Focus on eating whole foods and avoid replacing saturated fats with sugar or refined carbs.
Publication
Journal
The American journal of clinical nutrition
Year
2010
Authors
Siri-Tarino PW, Sun Q, Hu FB, Krauss RM
Related Content
Claims (10)
Multiple large-scale meta-analyses of prospective cohort studies demonstrate no statistically significant association between dietary saturated fat intake and incidence of coronary heart disease or cardiovascular disease.
Different studies used different ways to measure what people ate — some asked about food habits over a year, others just asked what they ate yesterday — which might make it harder to see real links between diet and heart disease.
The studies in this review didn’t all agree with each other, but the reason for the disagreement wasn’t because of differences in how old the people were, how long they were followed, or how good the studies were.
Even when researchers accounted for how many total calories people ate or how much other fats they consumed, the link between saturated fat and heart disease still didn’t show up.
Whether you're young or old, male or female, eating more saturated fat doesn't seem to affect your heart disease risk any differently, according to this big review.