A new study funded by the Danish Dairy Research Foundation has found that butter - the very same product the company makes - can be bad for you.
Contrary to what the company had hoped, the study found that butter raises cholesterol more than alternatives like olive oil. In it's worse case scenario, the findings showed that even moderate levels of butter consumption could result in higher cholesterol levels.
A study funded by a company, that later undermines the interests of said company is a rare occurrence. Such a situation is so rare, in fact, that the results were noted by Marion Nestle, who is the Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition & Food Studies at New York University, according to The Washington Post.
Nestle runs a blog titled Food Politics that records various studies (5 at a time) that served the interests of their sponsors. Since March, she found 37 instances of industry-funded research that cleared orange juice, high-fat cheese, and sugar of various harms.
"[H]ypercholesterolemic people should keep their consumption of butter to a minimum, whereas moderate butter intake may be considered part of the diet in the normocholesterolemic population," the study's authors concluded.
It's noted that one should always be skeptical of studies telling you what to eat or what not to eat since someone is paying for that study, and they sometimes don't have consumers' well-being in mind, according to Consumerist.
The study was published in the July 1 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
