Dr. Sinatra's HeartMD Institute

Health Benefits of Olive Oil

Stephen Sinatra
olives in olive oil

I’ve long been an aficionado of olive oil. These days my head is spinning because of a steady outpouring of research showing olive oil’s superb health benefits…

According to Greek mythology, the olive tree was the creation of the goddess Athena, who first planted one out among the rocky grounds of the Acropolis and endowed it with powers to illuminate the darkness, soothe wounds, and provide nourishment.

I don’t know about the veracity of the goddess story, but I do know that few foods can match olive oil’s ability to provide nourishment in the form of a very healthy fat your body needs as well as antioxidants that perform numerous protective functions.

Yes, I’m Italian and have been eating olive oil all my life. But the reason for my bullishness has less to do with that, and more to do with the fact that I am a doctor who preaches good nutrition and optimum health. In this brief article you’ll learn why olive oil fits squarely into my agenda for a healthy lifestyle. And in this follow up article, you’ll learn why you have to be ultra-cautious about the kind of olive oil you buy: not all olive oil is created equally, and some products may be adulterated. The health benefits I describe below relate to extra-virgin olive oil – the preferred form − but unscrupulous suppliers are marketing lesser quality olive oil and calling it extra-virgin. And that’s why you need to read labels carefully. But I diverge….

Boost Your Brain Health with Olive Oil

Benefits of Olive Oil for the Heart, Brain, Body

Goddesses aside, humans have long recognized the healing power of olive oil. Hippocrates, known as “the father of medicine,” was said to have prescribed olive oil for many ailments, including ulcers, cholera, muscular pains, sore gums, and wounds, some 2,500 years ago.

For decades, olive oil has been recognized as an important element in the Mediterranean Diet, the traditional pattern of food eaten by Spaniards, Italians, Greeks, Turks and other peoples living around the Mediterranean basin. The diet (which provides the foundation for my PAMM diet) features fruits, vegetables, fish, olives and olive oil, and a bit of red wine, and is low in meat, sweets, and dairy. Study after study has shown that this diet contributes to heart health and longevity.

Now, it seems research is literally pouring out of the region demonstrating a paramount nutritional and health role for olive oil as an “all-star” in the Mediterranean diet. Studies show that the consumption of olive oil, a fat, is one important reason why Mediterranean populations tend to have much less heart disease than Americans or Northern Europeans; it may also indeed contribute to healthier aging and greater longevity.

In a 2010 review of research, a team of Spanish researchers listed these olive oil benefits:

In 2014, researchers from Europe and the U.S. discovered that natural compounds in olive oil (called polyphenols) can specifically enhance the ability of HDL cholesterol to strip away and remove excess cholesterol that accumulates in arterial plaque. This function, called “cholesterol efflux capacity,” has attracted major research attention in recent years as a primary anti-atherosclerosis activity of HDL. A higher blood level has long been considered as a protective factor in general, and now lower efflux capacity is being associated with heart failure and coronary artery disease. In the olive oil study, the researchers found that the polyphenols in the oil promote efflux capacity as well as HDL stability.

What’s So Powerful About Polyphenols?

And here’s more exciting research developments on the olive oil front…

Olive Oil and Genes: More Anti-Inflammatory Action

In a 2010 study, researchers identified nearly a hundred genes related to obesity, diabetes, and blood lipids that were affected in a healthy way by the antioxidant compounds contained in olive oil. Some of those genes, involved intimately in inflammatory processes, were repressed by the olive oil, and that’s a good thing. Keep in mind that uncontrolled inflammation is involved in most common diseases, from cardiovascular disease and diabetes to cancer and auto-immune conditions. So increasing the anti-inflammatory quality of your diet with something like olive oil may be another simple and natural way to protect yourself.

What’s So Special In Olive Oil?

Like any nutritional oil, olive oil has its own particular chemical makeup and this is what makes it indeed so special. First of all, olive oil is rich in a monounsaturated fatty acid called oleic acid that has been linked repeatedly in experiments to beneficial effects against cancer cells as well as to reducing high blood pressure. Next, olive oil contains many compounds with marked physiological benefits. Heading the list are oleuropein and hydroxytyrosol, two highly absorbable and extensively studied antioxidants found to have highly protective actions against several diseases, notably cardiovascular and metabolic disorders. These compounds are multi-taskers. Among other things, they promote arterial dilation and integrity, inhibit cholesterol oxidation and platelet aggregation, and appear to have anti-diabetic properties.

A “Super” Mediterranean Diet?

In 2013, the publication of a large Spanish investigation called the Predimed Study revealed that a Mediterranean diet enhanced with extra-virgin olive oil offered superior protection after nearly five years against heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. Enhancement meant the addition of four tablespoons a day − about 50 grams of fat! Yet there was no weight gain associated with that extra amount of fat intake. The study involved nearly 7,500 men and women at high cardiovascular risk who were free of cardiovascular disease at the time of enrollment, but had either type 2 diabetes or several common risk factors.

Now get this. The participants in the study assigned to eat the olive oil-enhanced diet had a rate of cardiovascular events 28 to 30 percent less than a comparison group eating a standard Western-type low-fat diet! In a further breakdown of non-diabetic but high-risk participants, the olive oil group had a 40 percent less risk of developing diabetes compared to the low-fat dieters. The researchers noted that the Mediterranean diet overall has dietary components beneficial for alleviating inflammation, oxidative stress, and insulin resistance and secretion, all pathogenic factors in the diabetes process. Extra-virgin olive oil, with its potent anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects, is clearly a major element in this protective activity against diabetes. Another Spanish study found that olive oil reduces triglycerides, a blood fat associated with the metabolic syndrome, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.

Combined, these results are spectacular. The Predamid study is the first large randomized trial to show that a Mediterranean-type diet can actually – in real life − reduce cardiovascular events and thus serve the purpose of primary cardiovascular prevention. Primary prevention means stopping initial heart attacks or strokes.

Mediterranean Diet Better Than Low-fat Diets

The results from the study were so striking to me that I contacted the lead Spanish researcher, Miguel Martinez-Gonzalez, M.D., Ph.D., an expert in preventive medicine and public health at the University of Navarra in Pamplona, and invited him to serve on an American College of Nutrition panel I moderated in 2013 on the subject of cholesterol, fats, and statins.

Dr. Martinez-Gonzalez strongly believes that the so-called low-fat diet, promoted for decades in the U.S., fails to prevent cardiovascular disease. By comparison, he says, the Mediterranean diet has a great track record for not only effectiveness, but for sustainability, nutritional quality, and taste. Moreover, he says, the protective effects of the traditional Mediterranean diet appear to be even greater when adding extra-virgin olive oil, as his studies indicate.

In an earlier 2013 study, he conducted a review of the medical literature that evaluated the association between overall dietary patterns and the risk of metabolic syndrome, a widespread forerunner to diabetes and cardiovascular disease. The findings showed a clearly higher risk from Westernized diets full of meat and meat products, snacks, baked desserts and sugar-sweetened beverages. The Mediterranean diet, by comparison, had a much lower risk, with its emphasis on olive oil, nuts, and fish with a high mono- and polyunsaturated fatty acid content, dietary fiber, and bioactive natural antioxidant and anti-inflammatory compounds.

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© Stephen Sinatra, MD. All rights reserved.

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