JAMA Study: Novel Study with Families Confirms Switching to Margarine Can Lower Entire Family's Risk of Coronary Heart Disease

Wednesday, December 6th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

A revolutionary study to be released in the December 6th issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) clearly proves that making the switch to margarine from butter can lower your entire family's cholesterol -- and reduce the risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) . What makes this research significant is that it is the first-ever study to evaluate an entire family's ability to respond to dietary changes.

The Groundbreaking Study

In an extraordinary study of 46 biological families (226 individuals in all, with 92 adults and 134 children as young as six years), margarine significantly lowered total cholesterol and bad (LDL) cholesterol when compared to butter. In some cases, the margarine-based diets even lowered total cholesterol levels as much as medication.

In this head-to-head comparison with the families participating in this program, lead researcher Margo Denke, M.D. of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas found that both total and bad cholesterol levels were dramatically lowered in adults as well as children as a result of the margarine diet when compared to the butter diet. This is an important finding since other studies have confirmed that heart disease begins developing at a very early age.