Some olive oils fight heart disease and cognitive decline. But to get the greatest benefit, you need to pick the right stuff

Reprinted from an article in AARP Bulletin by Clint Carter, April 2020

In normal times, Italians outlive Americans by an average of four years. But in the Sicani Mountain region of Sicily, marked by rolling hills covered with olive trees, the locals live past 100 at a rate more than four times greater than Italy as a whole.

Sicani Mountain villagers eat a Mediterranean diet, snacking on olives and using the fruit’s oil to prepare dinner. As a result, their arteries are as supple as those of people 10 years younger, researchers say.

“We’ve known for 50 or 60 years that the Mediterranean diet is beneficial for health, but olive oil is emerging as the most important ingredient,” says Domenico Praticò, MD, director of the Alzheimer’s Center at Temple University. Among people in olive-growing regions, the incidences of heart disease, cancer, type 2 diabetes, and even cognitive decline are very low.

How Olive Oil Offers Hope

Praticò and others have been exploring the effect of extra-virgin olive oil, or EVOO, on the brain. They’ve discovered that compounds in the fat of this high-grade oil can flush out proteins that gum up the communication channels between brain cells. That might delay, and even possibly reverse, Alzheimer’s and other dementias.

One compound that seems to drive this effect is an olive-derived polyphenol called oleocanthal. In animal studies at Auburn University, oleocanthal demonstrated an ability to “rinse out” amyloids, which form the plaques associated with Alzheimer’s. In mice EVOO can “flush out” tau, a protein that hinders language skills and memory in humans.

Buyer, Beware!

But not all the EVOO sold at the supermarket is as potent as the oil that researchers use to “flush out” neurotoxins. In lab tests more than half of imported EVOO purchased at retail failed to meet standards of quality and flavor (a marker of antioxidant content) established by the Madrid-based International Olive Council. In a 2015 analysis from the National Consumers League, 6 in 11 EVOOs obtained from reputable stores such as Safeway and Whole Foods failed the extra virgin test. They were either mislabeled or had degraded during shipping and storage. So what does all this mean? You need to know a few shopping tricks if you want to get all the protection that EVOO offers to the centenarians of the Sicani Mountains.

 The following article is reprinted from the website Science2.0. The original research was published in ACS Chemical Neuroscience, Feburary 15, 2013

Consumption of extra virgin olive oil has been linked to reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and its benefit may lie in one component of olive oil that helps shuttle the abnormal AD proteins out of the brain.

Alzheimer’s disease affects about 30 million people worldwide but the prevalence is lower in Mediterranean countries—thus the correlation with olive oil. Scientists once attributed it to the high concentration of healthful monounsaturated fats in olive oil, which is consumed in large amounts in the Mediterranean diet.

Recent research also suggested that the actual protective agent might be a substance called oleocanthal, which has effects that protect nerve cells from the kind of damage that occurs in AD. [The University of Louisiana research] team sought evidence on whether oleocanthal helps decrease the accumulation of beta-amyloid (Aβ) in the brain, believed to be the culprit in AD.

In their paper, Amal Kaddoumi and colleagues describe tracking the effects of oleocanthal in the brains and cultured brain cells of laboratory mice used as stand-ins for humans in such research. In both instances, oleocanthal showed a consistent pattern in which it boosted production of two proteins and key enzymes believed to be critical in removing Aβ from the brain.

“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,” the report concludes.