MartaGuasch-Ferré PhD, Yanping Li PhD, Walter C, Willett MD, Dr PH, Qi Sun MD, ScD Laura Sampson RD, Jordi Salas-Salvadó MD, Miguel A. Martínez-González MD, Meir J. Stampfer MD, Dr PH, Frank B. HuMD, PhD

Published: January 2022

Background:

“Olive oil consumption has been shown to lower cardiovascular disease risk, but its associations with total and cause-specific mortality are unclear.”

Objectives:

“The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether olive oil intake is associated with total and cause-specific mortality in 2 prospective cohorts of U.S. men and women.”

Methods:

“The authors used multivariable-adjusted Cox proportional-hazards models to estimate HRs for total and cause-specific mortality among 60,582 women (Nurses’ Health Study, 1990-2018) and 31,801 men (Health Professionals Follow-up Study, 1990-2018) who were free of cardiovascular disease or cancer at baseline. Diet was assessed by a semiquantitative food frequency questionnaire every 4 years.”

Results:

“During 28 years of follow-up, 36,856 deaths occurred. The multivariable-adjusted pooled 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 (95% CI: 0.78-0.84) compared with those who never or rarely consumed olive oil.

Higher olive oil intake was associated with 19% lower risk of cardiovascular disease mortality (HR: 0.81; 95% CI: 0.75-0.87), 17% lower risk of cancer mortality (HR: 0.83; 95% CI: 0.78-0.89), 29% lower risk of neurodegenerative disease mortality (HR: 0.71; 95% CI: 0.64-0.78), and 18% lower risk of respiratory disease mortality (HR: 0.82; 95% CI: 0.72-0.93).

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 associations were observed when olive oil was compared with other vegetable oils combined.”

Conclusions:

“Higher olive oil intake was associated with lower risk of total and cause-specific mortality.

Replacing margarine, butter, mayonnaise, and dairy fat with olive oil was associated with lower risk of mortality.”

You can see more details about this study here