WHAT ARE THE HEALTH BENEFITS OF OLIVE OIL? - WWW.MEDICALNEWSTODAY.COM

Last updated on Friday 20 September 2013

Originally published on Wednesday 18 September 2013

Olive oil, which is rich in monounsaturated fatty acids, is a major component of the Mediterranean diet. Populations from that region have longer life expectancies and lower risks of heart disease, high blood pressure and stroke, compared with North Americans and Northern Europeans.

Monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFAs) are considered a healthy dietary fat, as opposed to saturated fats and trans fats.

In this Medical News Today information page, there is a brief description of olive oil, its health benefits, nutritional value, and how different types of olive oil are classified.

 

What is olive oil?

Olive oil is a fat obtained from the fruit of the Olea europaea (olive tree), a traditional tree crop of the Mediterranean region, where whole olives are pressed to produce olive oil.

The oil is used in cosmetics, medicine, cooking and soaps, and was also used as a fuel for traditional lamps. Although originating in the Mediterranean countries, today it is used worldwide.

Greece has the highest olive oil intake per person in the world. Greeks consume, on average, 24 liters per-person-per-year, according to the North American Olive Oil Association¹. Spaniards and Italians consume about 15 and 13 liters-per-person-per year, respectively.

What are the health benefits of olive oil?

Over the last 50 years, there have been thousands of studies examining the health benefits of olive oil. Below are some examples:

 

Olive oil and the cardiovascular system

Olive oil is the main source of dietary fat in the Mediterranean diet, which is associated with a low death rate from cardiovascular diseases compared to other parts of the world.

Maria-Isabel Covas, at the Parc de Recerca Biomèdica de Barcelona, Spain, carried out an extensive review of studies that had focused on the biological and clinical effects of olive oil.

The study was published in the journal Pharmacological Research².

The study found that people who regularly consume olive oil are much less likely to develop cardiovascular diseases, including hypertension (high blood pressure), stroke, and hyperlipidemia (high blood cholesterol and triglyceride levels).

Covas also found that regular olive oil intake helps reduce inflammation, endothelial dysfunction (problems with the inner linings of blood vessels), thrombosis and carbohydrate metabolism.

Covas concluded "The wide range of *anti-atherogenic effects associated with olive oil consumption could contribute to explain the low rate of cardiovascular mortality found in Southern European Mediterranean countries, in comparison with other western countries, despite a high prevalence of coronary heart disease risk factors."

*Anti-atherogenic means preventing the hardening of the arteries and the development of atherosclerosis.

 

Frying with olive oil does not raise heart disease risk

People who regularly eat foods fried in olive oil do not have a higher risk of heart disease or premature death, researchers at the Autonomous University of Madrid in Spain reported in the BMJ (British Medical Journal).

In this study, Professor Pilar Guallar-Castillón and colleagues surveyed 40,757 adults aged from 26 to 69 years over an 11-year period. They focused on the people's cooking methods and dietary habits. None of the participants had heart disease when the study started.

The team defined fried meals as food that had only been prepared by frying it. Participants were also asked whether their fried food was sautéed, battered or crumbed.

The researchers concluded:

"In a Mediterranean country where olive and sunflower oils are the most commonly used fats for frying, and where large amounts of fried foods are consumed both at and away from home, no association was observed between fried food consumption and the risk of coronary heart disease or death."

 

Olive oil helps prevent stroke

Dr. Cécilia Samieri, from the University of Bordeaux and the National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM) in Bordeaux, France, and colleagues reported in the journal Neurology that olive oil may prevent strokes in older people.

The team found that older people who regularly used olive oil for cooking and salad dressing or with bread had a 41% lower risk of stroke, compared with their counterparts who never consumed it.

Dr. Samieri said, "Stroke is so common in older people and olive oil would be an inexpensive and easy way to help prevent it."

 

Depression risk lower with olive oil, higher with trans fats

People whose diets are high in trans fats - fast foods and mass-produced foods like pastries - may have a higher risk of depression, compared with those whose diets are rich in mono- and polyunsaturated fats.

According to a study carried out at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in Spain and published in PLoS ONE, olive oil appears to have a slight protective effect regarding depression risk.

Dr. Almudena Sánchez-Villegas and colleagues added that their findings stood even after taking into account people's overall diet, physical activity and lifestyle.

The research team gathered and analyzed data on 12,000 volunteers over a period of 6 years. Their average age at the start of the study was 37.5 years. They had all regularly completed a 136-item questionnaire which had information on their dietary habits, lifestyle, and physical and mental health.

The investigators counted the number of people with depression at the start of the study and then again during each follow-up. Cases of depression had to be those clinically diagnosed by a doctor.

The study authors found that when they compared the volunteers who consumed trans fats regularly with individuals whose dietary fat consisted primarily of olive oil, the trans fat consumers had a 48% higher risk of developing depression.

The amount of trans fat consumed was directly related to depression risk - the more they ate, the higher the risk.

Olive oil may reduce breast cancer risk

A team of scientists at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona in Spain found a key mechanism by which virgin olive oil protects the body against breast cancer, in contrast to other vegetable oils.

The researchers decoded a complete cascade of signals within the cells of breast tumors that are activated by virgin olive oil. They concluded that the oil reduces the activity of p21Ras, an oncogene, prevents DNA damage, encourages tumor cell death, and triggers changes in protein signaling pathways.

The team found that while corn oil - which is rich in n-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids - increased the aggressiveness of tumors, virgin olive oil had the opposite effect.

They demonstrated that virgin olive oil is linked to a higher incidence of benign (non-cancerous) breast tumors.

 

Olive oil helps maintain healthy cholesterol levels

A Japanese study published in the Medical Science Monitor³ showed that LDL-cholesterol mean concentrations were lowered in 28 outpatients who were given olive oil supplements once a day for six weeks.

LDL (low density lipoprotein) is often referred to as "bad cholesterol". The "good cholesterol" is called HDL (high density lipoprotein).

The study authors concluded "These results point to an overwhelmingly beneficial influence of olive oil on the lipoprotein spectrum."

 

How extra virgin olive oil protects against alzheimer's disease

Oleocanthal is a type of natural phenolic compound found in extra-virgin olive oil. In laboratory experiments with mice, researchers discovered that oleocanthal helps shuttle the abnormal Alzheimer's disease proteins out of the brain.

As background information, the researchers explained that Alzheimer's disease rates are lower in Mediterranean countries, where consumption of olive oil is higher than anywhere else in the world.

Amal Kaddoumi and team set out to determine whether oleocanthal might help reduce the accumulation of beta-amyloid, believed to be the culprit of Alzheimer's disease (AD).

Their study was published in the journal Chemical Neuroscience.

The team tracked the effects of oleocanthal in the cultured brain cells and brains of laboratory mice.

They found that in both cultured brain cells and the mice's brains themselves oleocanthal consistently boosted the production of two proteins and key enzymes known to be vital in the removal of beta-amyloid from the brain.

The study authors concluded "Extra-virgin olive oil-derived oleocanthal associated with the consumption of Mediterranean diet has the potential to reduce the risk of AD or related neurodegenerative dementias."

 

Extra virgin olive oil helps prevent acute pancreatitis

Extra virgin olive oil is rich in oleic acid and hydroxytyrosol, which affect the development of acute pancreatitis (sudden inflammation of the pancreas).

Researchers at the University of Granada in Spain carried out an in vitro experiment which found that the components of extra virgin olive oil can protect from acute pancreatitis.

Head researcher, María Belén López Millán said that "there is increasing evidence that there are oxidative-inflammatory processes involved in the origin of chronic diseases and that diet plays an important role in such processes."

 

Extra virgin olive oil protects the liver

Investigators at the University of Monastir, Tunisia, and King Saud University, Saudi Arabia, carried out a study demonstrating that extra virgin olive oil may protect the liver from oxidative stress.

Oxidative stress refers to cell damage associated with the chemical reaction between free radicals and other molecules in the body. Put simply, oxidative stress means cell damage.

In this study, which was published in BioMed Central, Mohamed Hammami and colleagues reported that laboratory rats exposed to a moderately toxic herbicide that were fed on a diet containing olive oil were partially protected from liver damage.

Hammami said "Olive oil is an integral ingredient in the Mediterranean diet. There is growing evidence that it may have great health benefits including the reduction in coronary heart disease risk, the prevention of some cancers and the modification of immune and inflammatory responses. 

Here, we've shown that extra virgin olive oil and its extracts protect against oxidative damage of hepatic tissue".

 

Olive oil protects from ulcerative colitis

Ulcerative colitis, a fairly common long-term (chronic) disorder, is a disease that causes inflammation of the large intestine (colon). It is a type of inflammatory bowel disease that is similar to Crohn's disease, a related disorder.

Scientists at the University of East Anglia in England say that consuming more olive oil could help fend off ulcerative colitis.

Dr Andrew Hart and team gathered and analyzed data on more than 25,000 people living in Norfolk, England. They were aged between 40 and 65 years. The volunteers were part of the EPIC study (European Prospective Investigation into Diet and Cancer), spanning from 1993 to 1997. None of them had ulcerative colitis at the start of the study.

The participants regularly completed questionnaires and kept detailed food diaries, which included information on their overall health and consumption of fats.

In a 2004 follow up, the researchers compared the diets of those who had developed ulcerative colitis with those who had not.

They discovered that the participants with the highest intake of oleic acid - a component of olive oil - had a 90% lower risk of developing ulcerative colitis compared to those with the lowest intake.

Dr. Hart said "Oleic acid seems to help prevent the development of ulcerative colitis by blocking chemicals in the bowel that aggravate the inflammation found in this illness. We estimate that around half of the cases of ulcerative colitis could be prevented if larger amounts of oleic acid were consumed.

Two-to-three tablespoons of olive oil per day would have a protective effect."

 

What is the nutritional value of 100g (3.5oz) of olive oil?

• Energy - 3,701 kJ (885 kcal)
• Carbohydrates - 0 g
• Fat - 100 g.
  - saturated 14 g
  - monounsaturated 73 g
  - polyunsaturated 11 g
  - omega-3 fat <1.5 g
  - omega-6 fat 3.5-21 g
• Protein - 0 g
• Vitamin E - 14 mg (93% of recommended daily intake for adults)
• Vitamin K - 62 μg (59% of recommended daily intake for adults)

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CANAAN ESTABLISHES ORGANIC RESEARCH AND EXTENSION CENTER IN PALESTINE

Canaan Fair Trade, a social entrepreneurship firm dedicated to artisan quality products that seeks to sustain the livelihood of Palestinian producer communities, is pleased to announce the Canaan Organic Research and Extension Center (COREC) was incorporated in the state of Palestine on May 2, 2013.

The center is a not-for-profit that will serve as a national central point for conducting research, education and extension activities to promote organic production and marketing in Palestine. The center seeks to revive the authentic traditions of organic farming in Palestine while enriching them with modern organic farming knowledge. The traditional farming methods can also be utilized by the modern sustainability movement, creating a space for the small traditional farming family in the modern world.

The main researchers are the farmers themselves, aided by professional researchers and guided by established scholars and experts in the fields. The Center will also serve as a research field for international scholars who may wish to pursue study agendas in Palestine.

“We will collaborate with universities and other research centers around the world, pulling together

resources in organic farming into Palestine,” says Dr. Nasser Abufarha, Center founder. “We will share the wealth of our traditional farming knowledge with the organic movement around the world to help link the center with ideas, support, and partnerships.”

Canaan Fair Trade, a Palestinian company with a social mission, was founded in 2004 to empower

thousands of small farmers caught in conflict to sustain their livelihood, build hope for a better future, and promote economic and cultural interaction towards a peaceful tomorrow. Canaan produces and distributes the organic, Fair trade and Extra Virgin olive oil and traditional foods cultivated by 1700 small farmer members and 200 women producers joined in the 49 cooperatives of the Palestine Fair Trade Association.

The Center will be another vehicle to realize Canaan's mission of empowering Palestinian farming communities to sustain their livelihood and afford them a space in modern society.

 

FORGING NEW CONNECTIONS FOR PALESTINIAN FARMERS

Palestine Hopes to Make Its Mark as the Home of World-Class, Organic Olive Oil 

To qualify as extra-virgin olive oil, which brings the highest price, farmers must harvest their olives by hand.

 

The annual harvest festival falls in early November outside the northern West Bank city of Jenin, Palestine. Hundreds of farmers and their families come out to celebrate the end of another season of organic, fair trade, extra virgin olive oil production. It’s their livelihood, and it has improved markedly since the Palestine Fair Trade Association organized the farmers into cooperatives to help increase their incomes.

In Palestine’s occupied West Bank, 80% of the cultivated land is planted with olive trees. The association has organized 1,700 marginalized farmers into 43 cooperatives in the West Bank. These farmers used to sell their olives for less than it cost them to harvest them. Now they process them through a state-of-the-art olive press imported from Italy.

It’s all part of the association’s plan to brand Palestine as the home of world-class olive oil, explains olive press manager Ahmed Abu Farha as he gives a group of Palestinians and foreigners a tour.

“Our olive press cold presses the olives without heat, without using hot water in order to maintain the high quality of the product, and it also uses nitrogen; the idea is to prevent oxygen in the air from oxidizing the product,” he says. “To qualify as extra-virgin olive oil, which brings the highest price, farmers must harvest their olives by hand, not with rakes, and transport them immediately to the press in special containers that prevent bruising.”


The farmers sell most of their oil to the association, which brands it as Canaan Fair Trade, but keep some for their own use. Last year the co-op exported 450 metric tons of extra virgin olive oil to Europe, North America, Australia, Japan and Korea.

The lower quality oil that doesn’t make the grade is sold to make Dr. Bronner ‘s Magic Soaps, an organic, fair trade staple at natural food stores.
Hasan Kamel Samar, one of the co-op member farmers, harvests 400 olive trees in a village near Jenin. Through a translator he says that he makes more money now selling olives to the Fair Trade association. He planted all his trees, now between 15 and 18 years old. 

“The people here [in the association] are very nice and they treat the farmers very well,” he says. “And they give scholarships to the children of the farmers.”

All the guests walked around the grounds or sat under olive trees decorated with bold cloth sashes, eating plump pita bread soaked in olive oil, encrusted with spices and topped with hummus—another signature Palestinian food.  They listened to a band whose singer belted traditional songs in Arabic, and cheered as the names of the scholarship winners were announced.

Hasan Kamel Samar, an olive farmer in one of the cooperatives run by the Palestine Fair Trade Association.

 

The Palestine Fair Trade Association is the brainchild of Nasser Abu Farha (Ahmed’s uncle), who was educated at the University of Wisconsin. In 2005 he started discussing the idea of cooperatives with farmers around the West Bank.

“We’ve built a transparent structure where all the cooperatives can participate in decision-making and electing boards,” he says. “We’ve built an organization that transfers power to the communities that have been marginalized, and we cultivate international solidarity and bring it to the hands of these farmers, so we enable them to support themselves and their families.

We provide open market access and guide them through our research from what we know about organic farming. The main thing that came out of this is that we created hope among the farmers that there are people who care.”

The olive oil the association sells is stocked on the shelves of high-end stores like Whole Foods in the U.S. and Sainsbury’s in Britain—16 countries in all with sales of $5 million in 2010.

The size of the olives is determined in part by the moisture content in the soil. Since Palestinians receive about a fifth as much water as Israeli settlers in the West Bank, and are not allowed any water for irrigation, Abu Farha says that limits the size of the olives in many places, and many trees die for lack of water.

The association gives out 10,000 young trees a year to new farmers or to replace trees lost to cutting, uprooting or burning by the settlers or the Israeli Defense Forces. It is not uncommon, while driving through the West Bank, to see long stretches of olive tree stumps, where once healthy trees were cut down

 

In addition to olive oil, Canaan Fair Trade produces tahini, couscous, honey, fig spread, candied almonds and cactus sauce. Abu Farha says he wants to keep expanding the variety and quantity of organic, fair trade goods that are produced from the Biblical “land of milk and honey” in order to spread the sustainable income it generates to more Palestinian farmers.

MELINDA TUHUS is a Connecticut-based independent journalist. She writes the Activated blog for E
 

- See more at: http://www.emagazine.com/magazine/forging-new-connections-for-palestinian-farmers/#sthash.f98yu3lM.dpuf

EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OIL BUT...HOW IS IT BEING MADE?

 

How is extra virgin olive oil being made. It is necessary to underline that we purposely deal with virgin and extra virgin olive oil, for only these two types, according to law, can be obtained through a mechanical “pressing” of olives.

All other types, including the one simply called “olive oil”, undergo chemical treatment, normally called “refining” treatments.

 

Everything starts with the olives                     

 

 

Of course, it all starts with olives, people could say!

Yes, its’ true, however in times of frauds, food sophistication of all sorts, it is good to remind ourselves that extra virgin olive oil can be obtain only and exclusively from olives!

There are so many different types of olives. Every type can produce a different kind of oil with a specific character and “personality”. In technical slang language it is called “fruttato” (flavor) and there are many kinds, but here in “Oliving” we prefer using the word emotions: every olive gives a different emotions!

This historic fruit, throughout the centuries, has entered into the most different Italian regions and has adapted itself to all types of climate and conditions. The ripening process of olives reflects the great variety of existing types.

Some olives are ripe by the end of August, others in September, and still others in October, November and December. There is no precise rule to determine when the olives are ripe to the right point. When the process nears the external peel of the olive gets quickly darker> It is a process called darkening. It is not a rule, however the best quality of oil is obtained when the olives are picked at the beginning of the darkening process.

 

Unfortunately it corresponds to the moment when the yield is the lowest, if compared to when the olives are very dark (almost black).
We already stated that the quality of oil does not correspond to the quantity!                          

 

 

Harvest and storage 

                                        

There are different ways of picking the olives: by hand, with instruments facilitating the collection ( a sort of automatic rake), shakers (machines which shake the tree causing the olives to fall on the net).

 

Except from the picking by hand which remains undoubtedly the best method ever, yet, unfortunately, the most costly, it is quite difficult to define which are the actual disadvantages of other methods. To try understanding the critical points related to the collection of olives we propose a test which you can easily make at home.

 

Take a ripe apple, press the peel with one of your fingers. Sometime later you will notice that where you pressed the apple with your finger the color will darken. It is due to the fact that by pressing the skin of the apple you have accelerated the chemical processes of decay of the apple. Exactly the same happens with olives.

 

The more the collecting method mishandles the olives, the more they will reach the olive mill in poor conditions. This, coupled with the time of storage may have a bad influence on the quality of oil.

However, it cannot be said that only by hand picking the olives good quality oil can be produces! If the collection is carried out by using the brain on top of the use of hands … it is possible to obtain some very good quality of oil also with other methods which rely on some mechanical devises.                                 
                                    

 

Storage

After the harvest and before being crashed, olives must be stores in some appropriate containers.

The storage is definitely one of the most critical passages of the entire process. Even when olives are of the best quality and have been properly picked, a bad storage could totally compromise the quality of the oil by introducing a series of defects which can be easily perceived even by people who are not expert in the field.

 

The reason which lies at the bases of this critical moment is quite simple: olives start to decay (oxidation, fermentation, etc.) from the first moment following the harvesting. This decay process increases with the passing of hours, with the change of temperature, and the pressure suffered by olives stored in large quantity. The following are some of the rules which producers of high quality oil normally follow:




1. Avoid storing olives for a period longer than 24 hours ( high quality oil producers normally press the olives within 12 and 24 hours from harvesting time)

 2. Avoid using containers which are too tall so as to eliminate the pressure exercised by olives on top on olives at the bottom.

 3. Keep containers on a ventilate, cool area and very protected from the light.

 

Defoliation and olives washing

 

At the oil mill, olives are first of all cleared from all leaves. Actually, not all leaves are left behind while picking olives. This is by no means a problem, since leaves in small quantity contribute to the color of oil and also to its aroma.

 Nevertheless, some producers particularly “obsessed” with quality reach the point of selecting every single olive which enters the mill eliminating whichever residue which may even slightly compromise the high quality of oil.
It becomes clear that an extra virgin olive oil of this type will unavoidably be very expensive ( however, most likely, very good also!)

 

Crushing 

                                                                              

After having been washed, olives are ready to be literally crushed.
In people’s imagination this is the moment when oil is actually produced. Yet it is not so. In this phase olives are only crushed (pulp and seed) so as to facilitate the extraction of oil which will take place in following phases.

 

In the picture you see what is perhaps the most ancient method of crushing: the grindstone.
Nowadays such methods still exist, however it has been substituted by and large by other mechanical systems such as hammer crushers, or blade crushers, etc. But it is nice to stay with the ancient and more poetic method of the grindstones. The goal remains always the same; crushing the olives.

 

Kneading 

                                                                                                       

What is left with olives after the crushing is a kind of dough which has precisely to be “blended” (kneading) in such a way that separation of molecules of water from those of oil may be favored ( they were mixed in the previous phase). This is a fairly long part of the whole process; it ranges from forty minutes to an hour.

 

The dough must be kept at a stable temperature of approximately 27 Celsius degrees. It is this phase which gave the name “cold pressed” to the oil. The expert eye of the mill operator will determine when the dough is ready and that is when on top of the dough he starts seeing tiny drops of oil which can become visible.

 A curiosity: there are producers who collect ( with difficulty) the oil which appears on the surface of the dough. This type of oil is therefore called “protruded” . Few produce it and it is obviously most expensive, nevertheless it is definitely worth the expense!

One last thing: if anybody happens to stop at an oil mill while the dough is being processed, most likely they will be quite reluctant to show it to you … Not for lack of kindness, but simply because in all the different moments of the processing of oil, contact with air should be strictly avoided.

 

Extraction 

                                                                                                                    

Once the dough is ready it enters inside a “decanter” that has a centrifugal force which separates the solid elements (sansa) from the liquid ones (water and oil). The sansa is often used to obtain another kind of oil through a refining process ( sansa oil) or made into fuel.

For curiosity sake it must be also said that the centrifugal system is not the only one to get the oil out of the dough.

 The ancient way was that of inserting the dough inside containers shaped as discs, made with vegetable or synthetic fibers. Then, with great pressure the oil was squeezed out of the containers. It has become very rare to still find such system.

In order to bring the process of extraction to completion it is necessary to totally separate water from oil. To do it, another type of vertical-axis centrifugal force is being used.  Thus oil is being finally obtained!

It won’t be limpid and clear as we are accustomed to taste it.
Indeed there will still be some minute particles of solid matter which have not totally eliminated in the previous phases. It is enough to allow the new oil to rest for some days so as to allow these particles to be deposited at the bottom of the container.

For purely esthetical reasons, however, oil is normally being filtered in many ways so as to make it clear as we are accustomed seeing it.

 

Storage 

                     

 

Concluding, oil is being stored in stainless steel containers which is perhaps the most suitable material to guarantee its conservation.

These containers will be of different sizes according to the need.

 

Those producers who choose a quality wise objective normally substitute the amount of air remaining between the cover and the oil with some inert gases such as nitrogen.

This way the oxidation process is avoided. In a second moment oil will be bottled in a more or less automatic way, according to the volume of production.

 

 

 

 

 

OLIVE OIL AND THE IMMUNE SYSTEM

It has also been demonstrated that olive oil plays an important role in the immune system.

What is the immune system?

The immune system defends the body against invasion by foreign substances (toxins, microorganisms, parasites, tumour processes, etc.) by coordinating specific and non-specific mechanisms.


The non-specific or innate defences are the front-line protection against microorganisms. They are made up of the skin, mucous membranes, the complement system (the complement, a group of some 20 proteins manufactured in the liver, helps to destroy micro-organisms) hormonal factors, etc. and their action is not affected by prior contact with the foreign substance.


Specific mechanisms occur following exposure to the substance and they require the involvement of the B-lymphocytes (humoral system) and the T-lymphocytes (cell system).

Innate immunity responds in a similar way to the majority of microbes whereas the specific immune response varies according to the type of microorganism in order to eliminate it as effectively as possible.

Olive oil and the immune system

It has been documented that olive oil intake bolsters the immune system against external attacks from microorganisms, bacteria or viruses.
It has been known for some time that mineral and vitamin deficiencies can have an adverse effect on the immune system.

Recent research has concluded that the fatty acids in the make-up of olive oil are good allies in lowering important immunological parameters such as the proliferation of lymphocytes induced by specific mitogens of both B- and T-cells.


These fatty acids have been reported to play an important part in various immune functions. They are involved in regulating inflammatory processes and they may be effective in the treatment of some autoimmune diseases and in the regulation of the immune system in general.

Olive oil and rheumatoid arthritis

Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic inflammatory immune disease of unknown causes that affects the joints. Genes, infective factors, hormones and diet have been suggested as possible associates in its onset. Although some studies had suggested that olive oil could help to alleviate its symptoms they did not provide confirmation of such a protective effect.


Now, the results of a recently published study suggest that regular consumption of olive oil may reduce the risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis.
According to the authors of the study, the people on diets containing high levels of olive oil had less risk of suffering this disease. The study found that the people who consumed less olive oil had 2.5 times more possibility of developing rheumatoid arthritis than those who consumed it more frequently.


Although the mechanism involved is not yet clear, antioxidants are suspected to exert a beneficial effect.

OLIVE OIL AND CANCER

Cancer is one of the chief causes of death in the developed countries, and its incidence is on the increase.

It is now conceded that there is a relationship between diet and the development of a large number of malignant tumours. Cell oxidation is one of the major risks in the formation of cancer: the more susceptible the cell is to oxygen, the greater the risk of cancer.

The types of cancer most closely associated with diet are colon-rectal, prostate and breast cancer.
Recent research has revealed that the type of fat seems to have more implications for cancer incidence than the quantity of fat.

What is cancer?

A tumour is an abnormal swelling or enlargement of a part of body tissue. Tumours may be benign or malignant.

Benign tumours are tumours whose cells remain at their original site. They form a localised cell mass which, when it grows, encapsulates and very rarely causes death.

Malignant or cancerous tumours, on the other hand, invade the tissue where they grow. Often they pass into the bloodstream and the lymphatic system, forming secondary tumours at other sites known as metastases. The speed of growth and metastasis varies according to the type of tumour.

Various environmental factors (physical factors: radiation; chemical factors: certain constituents of foods) and genetic factors are at play in the formation of tumours. In most types of cancer, environmental factors are most important.

Olive oil and cancer

Epidemiological studies suggest that olive oil exerts a protective effect against certain malignant tumours (breast, prostate, endometrium, digestive tract, …).

A number of research studies have documented that olive oil reduces the risk of breast cancer.

Eating a healthy diet with olive oil as the main source of fat could considerably lower cancer incidence. The reason is that the cell mutations caused by cancer are partly due to toxins which, when consumed through the diet, attack DNA.

On passing through the liver, these toxins produce free radicals that then attack DNA. To combat such free radicals, the body needs vitamins and antioxidants like those contained in olive oil.

It has also been reported that an olive-oil-rich diet is associated with reduced risk of bowel cancer.

The protective effect of olive oil is irrespective of the amount of fruit and vegetables eaten in the diet.

Recent studies have demonstrated that olive oil provides protection against cancer of the colon. Lately, research has been looking into the metabolic implications of fats, more specifically the protective role of olive oil in chronic liver disease and in the disorder of the intestines known as Crohn's disease.

Results point to beneficial effects of olive oil on pre-cancerous lesions. After analysing three types of diet, research scientists arrived at various conclusions. The olive oil diet reduced the number of cancerous lesions; the number of tumours that developed was clearly and significantly low; and the tumours were less aggressive and had a better prognosis.


This beneficial effect could be related to oleic acid, the predominant monounsaturated fatty acid in olive oil. It has been observed that this fatty acid lowers the production of prostaglandins derived from arachidonic acid, which in turn plays a significant part in the production and development of tumours.

However, it is not excluded that other constituents of olive oil, such as antioxidants, flavonoids, polyphenols and squalene may also have a positive influence. Squalene is believed to have a favourable effect on the skin by reducing the incidence of melanomas.

Olive oil also adds to the taste of vegetables and pulses whose benefits in cancer prevention have been amply proved.

Some very promising, current research is centred on the protection provided by olive oil against child leukaemia and various cancers, such as oesophageal squamous cell cancer.

Much has still to be discovered about how olive oil affects cancer and concrete data are still lacking on the mechanisms behind the beneficial role it plays in the prevention or inhibitionof the growth of different types of cancer.

However, according to the information available at present, olive oil could actsimultaneously during the different stages involved in the process of cancer formation.

OLIVE OIL DURING PREGNANCY AND CHILDHOOD

Olive oil plays a key role in foetal development during pregnancy and a shortage may have pernicious effects on the baby's subsequent development.

It has been demonstrated that the post-natal development of babies of mothers who consumed olive oil when pregnant is better in terms of height, weight, behaviour and psychomotor reflexes.

The foetus needs vitamin E to grow. The newborn baby also needs a store of vitamin E to fight against the oxidative stress caused on entering an oxygen atmosphere. Although not very abundant in olive oil, it is present in sufficient quantity thanks to the resistance of olive oil to oxidation.

So, both the amount and the type of food consumed in the diet during pregnancy play a key part in the metabolic adaptations that occur in the mother and in her functional relationship with the foetus.

Olive oil and breast feeding

During labour, the vitamin E in the mother's blood is concentrated in the breast glands and so, during breast feeding, the mother continues to supply vitamin E. It is essential to maintain the levels of this vitamin during breast feeding.

Vitamin E is also recommended for premature and new-born infants with kidney or pancreas failure because of the favourable effect it has on the hepato-biliary system.

But olive oil not only provides enough essential fatty acids for the development of the new-born child; its ratio of linoleic acid to linolenic acid (essential fatty acids) is similar to that of breast milk.

The beneficial effect of oleic acid lasts beyond pregnancy. Besides its documented effectiveness in preventing hypercholesterolaemia and atherosclerosis, which is a process that can begin in childhood, oleic acid also appears to exert a positive influence on growth and bone mineralisation and development during infancy.

Dietary requirements

During pregnancy and breast feeding it is advisable to consume more fat, primarily monounsaturated fat, while reducing saturated fat and cholesterol as far as possible. General dietary guidelines should be followed and calorie intake should be controlled to avoid excessive weight gain.

Under-three-year-olds have different dietary requirements to children over this age. Forty per cent of the energy they consume comes from fat, whether it be in breast milk or any other kind of milk. It is recommended to maintain this dietary pattern and to ensure that energy and nutritional intake cover the developmental requirements of the child.