Hold the Butter…Pass the Olive Oil!

Updated July 2026

Fat gets a bad rap, but your body needs it to function. The catch is that some fats are far friendlier to your heart than others, so the smart move is to upgrade the kind of fat you eat rather than cut fat out. Olive oil is one of the easiest upgrades to make, and the evidence behind it keeps getting stronger. For the fuller picture on how the different fats stack up, see which fats are good and bad for your heart.

Is olive oil actually good for your heart?

Yes. A large Harvard study following more than 92,000 adults for 28 years found that people who consumed more than half a tablespoon of olive oil a day had a 19% lower risk of dying from cardiovascular disease than those who rarely or never used it. The benefits reached beyond the heart, with a 17% lower risk of cancer death, a 29% lower risk of death from neurodegenerative disease, and an 18% lower risk of death from respiratory disease.

One honest caveat: the people who used the most olive oil also tended to eat better overall, so olive oil is partly a marker of a healthier diet. But even after accounting for that, the association held up, and it fits everything else we know about this kind of fat.

Why is olive oil good for you?

Olive oil is made up mostly of monounsaturated fat, one of the heart-friendly fats. Mono- and polyunsaturated fats, the kind found in plants, nuts, seeds, and seafood, help lower LDL (the bad cholesterol), raise HDL (the good cholesterol), and lower triglycerides. They are also anti-inflammatory. Saturated fats, which come mainly from animal sources, do the opposite, tending to push LDL up and raise inflammatory markers. Since inflammation drives the risk of heart attack and stroke, that difference matters.

Is olive oil better than other healthy oils?

Not necessarily, and this is worth being clear about. In the same study, when olive oil was compared with other plant-based oils rather than with butter or margarine, it showed no particular advantage. The lesson is not that olive oil is magic. It is that unsaturated plant oils as a group are a better choice than animal fats and heavily processed spreads. Olive oil just happens to be a delicious, widely available way to get there. If you are wondering where tropical oils fit in, I covered that in coconut oil.

What about butter and margarine?

Swapping them out pays off. In the study, replacing margarine, butter, mayonnaise, or dairy fat with an equal amount of olive oil was linked to an 8% to 34% lower risk of death. Reaching for olive oil instead of butter is one of the simplest trades you can make.

Margarine deserves a special note, because the advice on it has changed. For decades, stick margarine was made with partially hydrogenated oils and was a major source of artificial trans fat, the worst kind of fat for your heart. That is no longer true. The FDA has since removed partially hydrogenated oils from the food supply, so today's tub spreads are largely trans-fat free. They are still highly processed products, though, with little to recommend them over a drizzle of good olive oil.

The bottom line

Set butter aside and reach for the olive oil. Olive oil is one easy swap, and it works even better as part of an overall pattern rich in unsaturated fats, fiber, and plant sterols, the same approach I lay out in how to lower cholesterol naturally. At Step One Foods, we build healthy fats into our products using whole-food sources like chia seeds, walnuts, and flaxseed, so you are covered there too. But this is a good reminder to make the easy swap in the rest of your kitchen. And just throw out the margarine.

If you're new to this site and found this useful, I write one of these evidence-based articles every week. You can get them in your inbox by joining my email list at the bottom of this page. No spam, no requirement to buy anything, just practical knowledge.