Olive oil is a delicious and versatile ingredient that can be both the finishing detail drizzled on top of pasta, flatbreads, and salads, or the very first component in your cooking process. If you love to incorporate olive oil in your meals, then you’ll be pleased to find out that according to a new study in the Journal of American College of Cardiology, consuming olive oil is linked to the decreased risk of cause-specific mortality in general.

More than 92,000 men and women in the United States who were free of cardiovascular disease or cancer over a 28-year period were involved in the study. Once some of the deaths that occurred among the participants were factored in, the researchers came to the conclusion that current participants who regularly consumed between half a tablespoon and seven grams of olive oil per day were associated with a lower all-cause mortality risk when compared to those who hardly consumed olive oil.

The study also revealed that replacing other fatty substitutes like margarine, butter, mayonnaise, and other dairy-fat equivalents with olive oil lowered participants’ risk of mortality.

Specifically, higher olive oil consumption was associated with a 19 percent lower risk of cardiovascular disease mortality, 17 percent lower risk of cancer mortality, 29 percent lower risk of neurodegenerative disease mortality, and 18 percent lower risk of respiratory disease mortality.

This may not be surprising as olive oil is the main source of fat in Mediterranean-style diets, which are common in some Blue Zones and are often rated as the overall healthiest way to eat.

Source study: Journal of American College of Cardiology – Consumption of Olive Oil and Risk of Total and Cause-Specific Mortality Among U.S. Adults