Olive Oil Intake Linked to Lower Mortality

Observational data from 2 prospective cohorts of U.S. men and women suggested that higher olive oil intake or replacing margarine, butter, mayonnaise, and dairy fat with olive oil were associated with lower risk of total and cause-specific mortality. The analysis included 60,582 women and 31,801 men from 1990 to 2018 who were free of cardiovascular disease (CVD) or cancer at baseline. Diet was assessed by a semiquantitative food frequency questionnaire every 4 years. During 28 years of follow-up, 36,856 deaths occurred. The multivariable-adjusted pooled hazard ratio (HR) for all-cause mortality among participants who had the highest consumption of olive oil (>0.5 tablespoon/day or >7 g/d) was 0.81 compared with those who never or rarely consumed olive oil. Higher olive oil intake was associated with 19%, 17%, 29% and 18% lower risk of CVD, cancer, neurodegenerative and respiratory disease mortality (HR: 0.81, 0.83, 0.71 and 0.82), respectively. In substitution analyses, replacing 10 g/d of margarine, butter, mayonnaise, and dairy fat with the equivalent amount of olive oil was associated with 8%-34% lower risk of total and cause-specific mortality. No significant differences were observed when olive oil was compared with other vegetable oils combined. The findings are in line with previous studies and support a survival benefit of eating vegetable oils such as olive oil. Source: https://www.jacc.org/