Butter Is Officially Not Going to Kill You

Researchers at Tufts University just did a massive study on butter's effect on our health. They want you to know that butter is OK for you. It may not be super-great for you—but it's not terrible, either. And that, as far as we're concerned, is some pretty damn good news. Even if the self-deprecating Danish butter industry says otherwise.

Here's the bottom line: Butter is not associated with cardiovascular disease. Eating it is only weakly associated with increased mortality risk. And butter may actually be protective when it comes to diabetes.

"Overall, our results suggest that butter should neither be demonized nor considered 'back' as a route to good health," said senior author Dariush Mozaffarian, M.D., who is Dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts. Mozaffarian also said, "More research is needed to better understand the observed potential lower risk of diabetes, which has also been suggested in some other studies of dairy fat. This could be real, or due to other factors linked to eating butter—our study does not prove cause-and-effect."

The study, to be published in PLOS ONE, is a meta-analysis in which the researchers reviewed multiple online academic and medical databases. In the end, the researchers looked at 636,151 individuals with a total of 6.5 million person-years of follow-up—that's a hell of a lot of people followed for a ton of years. The study found mostly small or insignificant associations between each serving of butter that people consumed and total mortality, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes.

In the end, butter "seemed to be pretty neutral overall," said Laura Pimpin, a former postdoctoral fellow at Tufts who is now a data analyst in public health modeling for the UK Health Forum. "This suggests that butter may be a 'middle-of-the-road' food." By that, she suggests that it's healthier than the white bread or potato upon which it is typically spread—but maybe not as healthful as flaxseed oil or extra virgin olive oil, to cite two examples of foods that are more actively good for you.

This study does much to disprove the thinking of the 1960s through the aughts with respect to butter. Several generations were told—by government guidelines as well as doctors—to avoid fats, especially saturated ones. And that meant butter was evil.

So is butter really back? Mozaffarian says, "Definitely not. Although saturated fat content is unhelpful for judging foods, people should prioritize those foods that we know improve health and butter is not one of them."

But if it's not bad for you, and it tastes so good, we may have to call for our own resuscitation of butter's reputation. Here's what we say: Slather away—just don't put your butter on a bagel. Those things can kill you.