(Denise Mann/ Health Today) — Swapping out the butter or other artery-clogging fats in your diet for heart-healthy olive oil may add years to your life, researchers say.
Folks who consume more than 1/2 a tablespoon of olive oil a day are less likely to die from heart disease, cancer, neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s or lung disease when compared to people who consume less of this healthy fat, a new study finds.
It’s not just adding olive oil to your diet that staves off death from disease, said study author Marta Guasch-Ferre, a research scientist in the nutrition department at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. “We need to pay attention to overall diet quality and lifestyle, and consistent with our results, the key would be to add olive oil into the diet as a substitution of other unhealthier fats.” (…)