Everything is better with butter, sounds nice as long as it is a cook's maxim. This is because in real life, it is quite the opposite of better. As per a recent study published in JAMA Internal Medicine, people who eat loads of butter have a higher risk of premature death compared to those who use mostly plant-based oils like canola or olive oil. The latter group has a lower than average risk, researchers found. The researchers even found that going for plant-based oils like canola or olive oil cause a person's risk of premature death to drop dramatically. The results also show that if you substitute 10 grams of butter a day, which is less than a tablespoon with plant based oils, it could lower the person's risk of death from any reason, specifically from cancer by 17%. The lead investigator, Yu Zhang, a research assistant at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston said, "What's surprising is the magnitude of the association that we found — we saw a 17% lower risk of death when we modeled swapping butter with plant-based oils in daily diet. That is a pretty huge effect on health."How Was The Study Conducted?The findings were based on diet and health data which was taken by following 220,000 people for more than three decades as part of three long-term studies of health professionals. In every four years, these participants answered questions about their diets. The study analyzed total butter, which included butter and margarine blends, spreadable butter and butter used for baking and frying at home. The intake of plant based oils was also estimated based on people's use of them in frying, sauteing, baking and dressing salads. The results concluded that people who ate the most butter had a 15% higher risk of dying compared to those who ate the least. In fact, those who chose plant based oils had a 16% lower risk of death than those who ate the least. Further research on this has also revealed that swapping even a small amount of butter with plant-based oil could lower risk of death. A senior researcher Dr Daniel Wang, who is an assistant professor of nutrition at Brigham and Women's Hospital said, "People might want to consider that a simple dietary swap -- replacing butter with soybean or olive oil -- can lead to significant long-term health benefits. "From a public health perspective, this is a substantial number of deaths from cancer or from other chronic diseases that could be prevented."Why Does Swapping Butter Work?The reason for plant based oil to lower the risk of death is because butter and plant based oil contain different types of fatty acids. Those fatty acids act differently upon the body. Butter is rich in saturated fatty acids, which has links to a higher cholesterol and hardening of the arteries. These fats are also related to inflammation and altered hormone activity, which can also increase cancer risk. When it comes to plant based oils, they are more unsaturated fatty acids, which can lower cholesterol, help maintain cell and brain health, fight inflammation and even help a person absorb vitamins. The co-writer of the study Dr Young Moon Mark Park, as assistant professor of epidemiology with the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, said, "Butter is often associated with unhealthier dietary patterns, while plant-based oils are more commonly linked to healthier patterns, such as the Mediterranean diet and plant-based diets. These diets are rich in nutrient-dense foods and healthy fats, which work synergistically to reduce the risks of chronic disease and premature death.”