If confirmed by a Republican-led Senate, Kennedy would have wide-ranging authority over the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which regulates about 80 percent of the country’s food supply.

While he is widely known for his anti-vaccine views, Kennedy is also a prominent and vocal critic of seed oils, bringing a long-simmering debate about their health impacts into the mainstream.

In an August interview with Fox News, Kennedy called seed oils “one of the most unhealthy ingredients” found in food and said they are “one of the worst things you can eat” since they are associated with “body-wide inflammation.”

Instead, Kennedy recommends replacing seed oils with beef tallow, made from the fatty tissue of cow organs. Searching Kennedy’s historical public statements and social media accounts found no mention of olive oil.

Researchers, including scientific members of the American Heart Association, have long argued that plant oils – mostly derived from seeds, especially canola, sunflower and soybean – are a healthier alternative to animal fat due to their unsaturated fat content.

“Very consistently, all the data say butter and lard are bad for our hearts,” said Christopher Gardner, a professor of medicine at Stanford University. “Studies show swapping out saturated fats and replacing them with unsaturated fats lowers the risk for heart disease.”

While Kennedy is among the most prominent critics of seed oils, there is a growing anti-seed oil influencer movement on social media.

Seed oil critics articulate two main arguments. The first is that seed oils are often contaminated by hexane, the chemical solvent used in most commercial seed oil production.

Hexane is known to be toxic to humans in gaseous form but is used as a liquid in seed oil production. The hexane evaporates during the heat treatment that seed oils undergo when refined.

However, the FDA does not regulate or monitor hexane residues in seed oils, so it is unclear whether or not trace amounts of hexane remain in commercially available seed oils.

The more common argument against seed oils is their high content of omega‑6 polyunsaturated fatty acids, especially linoleic acid, compared to olive oil and animal-derived fats.

Linoleic acid content is about 55 percent in soybean oil, nearly 70 percent in sunflower oil (less than five percent in high-oleic sunflower oil) and more than 20 percent in canola oil. By contrast, olive oil comprises 2.5 to 21 percent linoleic acid, while beef has about one percent linoleic acid content.

Seed oil critics argue that omega‑6 fatty acids are converted into inflammation-promoting arachidonic acids in the body. Indeed, arachidonic acid is widely acknowledged as a building block for compounds that cause inflammation, but it has also been shown to suppress pro-inflammatory compounds.

According to a 2017 meta-analysis of 30 randomized control studies involving 1,377 subjects published, linoleic acid had a minimal impact on blood concentrations of inflammatory markers. The researchers attributed this to the fact that only 0.2 percent of linoleic acid is converted into arachidonic acid.

While it is widely acknowledged that humans need dietary sources of omega‑3 and omega‑6 fatty acids to survive, seed oil critics argue that modern Western diets include too many omega‑6 fatty acids and too few omega‑3 fatty acids.

Indeed, the recommended omega-6-to-omega‑3 ratio is four to one. However, some researchers estimate that these proportions range from ten to one to thirty to one in the U.S.

Seed oil critics also frequently highlight the correlation between seed oil consumption in the U.S. and rising obesity, cardiovascular disease and diabetes as evidence of their negative health impact.

However, correlation is not the same as causation. Instead, some experts argue that rising seed oil consumption is directly linked to the dramatic increase in ultra-processed foods, which include seed oils as an ingredient and are widely viewed as responsible for the aforementioned chronic diseases.

Gardner further argued that ultra-processed foods are unhealthy primarily because of other ingredients, including high-fructose corn syrup, added sugar and sodium. “It’s hard to cast the blame on the seed oils when these foods contain so many other things,” he said.

Kennedy has also strongly opposed ultra-processed foods and has said he would prohibit their use in school lunches. However, the FDA has no formal definition for ultra-processed food, which would make any ban difficult to implement.

• Massachusetts General Hospital
• American Heart Association

The study, published as a pre-print on BioRxiv, meaning it has not been peer-reviewed yet, found that aged mice fed dietary olive leaf extract with oleuropein demonstrated improved calcium uptake. This enhanced mitochondrial function, allowing the mice to run longer and increasing their muscle mass.

The study would be the first to show that mitochondria functioning can be targeted directly with molecules naturally found in olives and olive leaves. Mitochondria are cell organelles that use aerobic respiration to generate chemical energy used throughout the cell.

According to previous research, calcium uptake in mitochondria declines during aging. This likely contributes to sarcopenia, a type of muscle loss that naturally occurs in the aging process.

The researchers said the study serves as a good first step in determining the therapeutic value of oleuropein for sarcopenia and other types of muscle atrophy.

“The mineral calcium is involved in all skeletal muscle contraction, and the authors state that they are the first to discover that a decrease in calcium uptake by the mitochondria contributes to the mitochondrial decline associated with aging,” Mary M. Flynn, an associate professor of medicine and founder of the Olive Oil Health Initiative of the Miriam Hospital at Brown University, told Olive Oil Times.

“They screened several polyphenols and found that oleuropein could bind at the site where the calcium would enter the mitochondria, which then allows the calcium to enter the cell, thus avoiding the mitochondrial decline, and this was shown to improve and allow mitochondrial activity (or use of oxygen to produce energy) to happen,” she added.

According to Simon Poole, a physician, author and nutrition instructor for the Olive Oil Times Sommelier Certification Program, the research could add to the compendium of known olive oil health benefits. However, he warned that results from studies in mice cannot be automatically translated to humans.

“This study adds to the expanding database of research which shows potential beneficial effects of olive tree polyphenols such as oleuropein on cellular structures including mitochondria, and by implication on cell aging,” he said.

“It is important to remain cautious when considering results from animal studies and also where extracts of naturally occurring compounds are used,” Poole added. “It is often difficult to replicate study results when using supplements in humans, especially when researchers are looking for measurable health outcomes.”

Based on the dosages given to the mice by researchers, Flynn said the study could be recreated in humans.

“Research like this has to start in animals, and how that will then translate to humans is not known,“ Flynn said. “If the same effect (i.e., halting the natural decline in mitochondrial activity with aging) could be shown in humans, that would have very interesting implications.”

“The study was in mice, and they used a dose of 40 percent oleuropein at 50 milligrams per kilogram and found benefit,” she added. “Using the same dose in a human experiment, per 45.4 kilograms (100 lbs), that would be 2,270 milligrams or 2 grams of oleuropein per 100 lbs,” she said. “That does not sound like a lot, so it may be doable.”

Poole concluded that regardless of the next steps in the research, the study demonstrated that polyphenols have more profound health impacts than reducing inflammation and oxidations.

“This study does, however, represent more intriguing evidence to support the notion that polyphenol compounds produced by the olive tree may have biological effects not only on pathways of inflammation and oxidation but also on the structures that power much of the biochemistry of cells,” he said.

• NMN

Launched in 2020 and supported with 180.000 euros by the Cassa di Risparmio di Lucca Foundation, the VegPM project gathered data from four Italian municipalities in Tuscany affected by high levels of fine particles: Lucca, Porcari, Capannori and Altopascio. In addition to olive trees, the research team revealed that Laurel (Laurus nobilis), Privet (Ligustrum), Oleander (Nerium oleander), Magnolia (Magnolia grandiflora) and Cherry laurel (Prunus laurocerasus) could also improve air quality.

Particulate matter is a mixture of solid and liquid particles – organic and inorganic. These particles are dispersed in the air and are highly dangerous for human health. Road traffic is the primary PM source, but heating systems, waste management and agriculture can also cause an excess of PM.

Particles are commonly classified by their diameter into three categories: “coarse” (PM10), “fine” (PM2.5) and “ultrafine” (PM0.2). The size of the particles determines how they affect the respiratory system and enter the bloodstream.

Prolonged exposure to PM10, in particular, can cause severe effects, such as cardiovascular and respiratory discomfort, chronic allergies, and even premature mortality in children. Epidemiological studies have also shown that the proximity of busy roads is associated with chronic respiratory diseases in children and the elderly. In an urban environment, these harmful effects can be intensified by dangerous heavy metals caused by exposure to oils, tires, fuel, metallic paints and waste.

Therefore, developing practical mitigation actions is one of the most critical challenges for local governments. Many municipalities have looked into designing effective “urban forests.” These require appropriate plant species to be planted along roadways or near highly polluted areas. For this new strategy to work, the plants chosen should respond to water stress and contain CO2 levels.

The VegPM project makes the entire area encompassing Lucca, Porcari, Capannori and Altopascio – about 100 km² – the innovative urban green model testing location. Lucca, Porcari, Capannori and Altopascio have the highest concentrations of PM10, nitrogen dioxide and ozone in all of Tuscany, according to the yearly regional air quality map released by Arpat.

“Some plant species can act as natural filters of particulate matter by intercepting and retaining particles on their leaf surfaces: Our goal was to identify, test and select the most promising among the native species of our climatic niche in order make them ideal candidates for undertaking local actions to significantly reduce air pollution,” says project coordinator Federico Martinelli, associate professor of Genetics at the Department of Biology of the University of Florence.

“As a first step, we made an extensive screening of the available species capable of adsorbing/trapping more PM, heavy metals and ozone: We combined pathophysiological studies with molecular analysis and genotyping techniques made available by the sequencing equipment available in the Department of Biology of the University of Florence, so to understand the molecular mechanisms that underlie the modulation of positive characteristics. Then, in 2021, in cooperation with the National Research Council of Italy, we launched the experimental part of the project by setting up a network of sixteen control units throughout the area, capable of monitoring the main air pollutants and collecting both quantitative and qualitative data. By integrating the values recorded by the monitoring centers with the particulate accumulated in the leaves of each species analyzed, we were able to rank the species with the highest PM deposition values.”

Researchers picked separate leaf samples for every tree. The deposition values of each PM fraction were compared and analyzed against the average particulate matter levels recorded throughout the year. Using this process, researchers could rank each species according to their ability to accumulate fine and ultrafine particles. They found that olive trees, in particular, demonstrate a high accumulation capacity.

“This feature, along with their ability to tolerate stresses such as drought and salinity, makes them one of the most promising candidates. In urban context, their presence is even more important because they naturally absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen, essential for the life of every human being.”

Given the experimental results of the VegPM project, the researchers hope that more research will be undertaken and show the ability of certain trees to negate the harmful effects of living in an urban environment.

“For now, our studies have focused only on existing plants. But what would it happen on new, planted plants? Would the PM concentration decrease more? I hope this question could stimulate a follow-up of the project,” Martinelli adds.

• Lucca Green Project website
• University of Florence — Plant Stress Lab

The European Public Health Alliance (EPHA), the European Heart Network (EHN) and the Consumers Organization (BEUC) noted that the latest data shows over half of E.U. adults and one-third of children currently living as overweight or obese.

They argued that such conditions place “these citizens at significant risk for various non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease and certain cancers.”

In their letter, the three organizations also stressed recent studies that confirmed obesity onset is earlier and the chances of living with obesity are much higher in lower-income households.

“While no policy tool can solve the issue of unhealthy food environments by itself, front-of-pack nutritional labelling, underpinned by robust independent scientific evidence, is an intervention which has been recognized by health experts as one which can tangibly help make the healthier choice the easier choice for consumers,” the signatories wrote.

The heated European Union FOPNL debate has highlighted divisions among member states. These differences of opinion are the main reason for the delays. The discussion has mainly focused on what kind of food labels should be introduced.

According to the open letter, the new labels should be mandatory for food producers, use interpretative color codes and be based on uniform reference amounts of 100 grams and 100 milliliters to “allow consumers to compare products according to their amounts of critical nutrients, notably saturated fat, sugars and salt.”

In the signatories’ view, such labels should be considered a tool to boost consumer education and dietary recommendations.

The promoters of Nutri-Score, the French-born front-of-pack food label, cheered the open letter initiative on its blog. In Nutri-Score’s view, its platform corresponds with the open letter’s description of the suggested labels.

Nutri-Score is a traffic-light-style FOPNL that uses a combination of five coordinated colors and letters to rate the health of a packaged food item. The rating is based on the food’s fat, sugar, salt and calorie content per 100 gram or milliliter serving. A “Green A” indicates the healthiest option, and a “Red E” denotes the least healthy.

• The open letter
• The Nutri-Score blog entry

Višnja Marasović, deputy head for the economy, tourism, agriculture, rural development and EU funds, opened Taste Extra Vergine. Representatives of local institutions, restaurateurs and citizens attended the event. The prefect of Šibenik-Knin County, Marko Jelić greeted everyone present.

“Our county can really offer adequate support through tourism, the tourist community, but also through our systems and the regional development agency. Our mission is to secure as many funds as possible and to help you. You know that we participate in analyses, equipment and purchases, and I hope that there will be more and more of that,” said Prefect Jelić.

The program began with two panels. The first was titled “Can Dalmatian Olive Oil Become a Brand?” This panel included many important insights into the Dalmatian olive oil industry.

Award-winning olive grower, Domagoj Živković, moderated the first panel. A wide range of venerated guests populated it. These included Mira Lepur, director of the Šibenik-Knin County Development Agency; Ante Sladić, winemaker and olive grower from Plastovo near Skradin and member of the Vino Dalmacie Association and OLEA Sensory Analysis Association; Dušanka Kolar, local oil painter; Tomislav Filipović, food technologist and owner of NIR analiza d.o.o., who is also known as the olive oil doctor; and Ivica Vlatković, representative of the Zadar County oil producers.

“Šibenik-Knin county is in a great position because it has its own indigenous variety of olives — kravovica, and I think that this is a great advantage of this county because it is a variety that other counties do not have,” said Vlatković.

“In Croatia, we have about 6 million olive trees, and in terms of olive oil production, we are 24th in the world, so we can say that Croatia, in addition to its cultural and historical heritage and exceptional natural beauty, also stands out for its food, which includes our olive oils,” said Lepur.

Lepur also emphasized the connection between Croatian olive oil producers, who are still not sufficiently represented, and olive oil production at a regional level.

Next, the panel discussed the need to protect the authenticity of Dalmatian olive oil. The region’s government started working towards this goal a few years ago, but unfortunately, it was never completed.

They also discussed the need to connect public institutions with producers in the field. Producers in Dalmatia could use the support of many institutions, including advisory services, LAGs, HOK, HGK, local development agencies and, finally, European funding.

The olive growers on the panel expressed the possibility of developing a uniquely Dalmatian brand of olive oil and how to achieve that goal.

“Olive oil is a vegetable fat that is very important in terms of gastronomy. When we talk about pairing with olive oil, we have to know the flavors of the food, assuming that we also know the flavors of the oil, and then we pair the food with the oil, while with wine, it is the opposite because we pair the wine with the food. So, there are two roles of olive oil in gastronomy; preparing food with olive oil and pairing food with olive oil,” said Filipović.

In addition to the opening two panels, the Taste Extra Vergine project included an exhibition and a tasting of the NYIOOC 2021 and 2022 award-winning extra virgin olive oils from Šibenik-Knin County.

OPG Ante Urem, Sv, Ivan Tomislav Duvnjak, OPG Buntić, OPG Dušanka Kolar, Vinarija Birin, Ante Sladić, Pasika d.o.o. Miroslav Ivić, OPG Krešimir Uroda, OPG Vjeran Paić and OPG Laurent Domagoj Živković produced the award-winning oils present. Along with the tasting, special delicacies containing olive oil were also served.

In the afternoon, there were three educational sessions. One of the three sessions was titled “The Influence of Extra Virgin Olive Oil on Health” and held by Vlatković.

“Olive oil is not a targeted medicine, but it has a long-term, preventive and curative effect on the occurrence of many diseases,” said Vlatković.

He explained, “Only extra virgin olive oil possesses this power in its full profile because it contains unchanged natural active ingredients. Any olive oil that loses its freshness, and thus its original natural composition, has a health effect proportional to its remaining content of active and medicinal biological components.”

In the other two educational sessions, Nina Vuletin, biotechnologist and sensor analyst, revealed how professionals taste and evaluate olive oils and Ante Rupić, agronomist and olive grower, did a deep dive into olive oil.

Šibenik-Knin County’s press release for the Taste Extra Vergine project emphasized that people should consume olive oil daily (one soup spoon is recommended).

The press release emphasized olive oil’s several health benefits. These include reduced heart attack and stroke risk, less bad cholesterol in the blood, lowered blood pressure, reduced risk of ulcers and gallstones, decreased blood sugar concentration, and a more efficient pancreas. Olive oil has also been shown to have antiviral, antimycotic, antioxidant and antimicrobial properties.

Olive growers from the Šibenik area, especially Tomislav Duvnjak, were responsible for the success of the Taste Extra Vergine project. Two years ago, Dalmatian olive growers first entered the prestigious olive oil competition, NYIOOC. Their contribution to the overall success of Croatian olive oils is easy to see.

Croatia won a total of 49 medals at the 2020 NYIOOC. The following year, coinciding with the first entry of Dalmatian olive oil producers, the number of awards Croatia won rose to 87. This last year, Croatian olive growers won a record 96 medals, of which Dalmatian oil growers “collected” more than half. More precisely, olive growers from Dalmatia received 55 awards at the 2022 NYIOOC; 29 were gold and 26 silver.

“Last year we were fourth, this year third, right behind Italy and Spain,” remembered Duvnjak. He expects even better results at the 2023 NYIOOC.

“We have the quality, and if we are even more united than before, we can achieve an even better result at the World Olive Oil Competition in New York,” Duvnjak said.

According to a study published in the International Dairy Journal, adding a feeding comprised of 28 percent olive leaves to a sheep’s daily diet might produce a healthier-than-normal cheese that consumers appreciate. The group of Italian researchers conducted the study by manipulating the diet of the sheep for thirty days.

Twenty multiparous Comisana ewes at mid-lactation were divided into a control group, and a leaves group. Both groups grazed together. During the two daily milkings, the leaves group would be given a concentrate containing dried olive leaves while the control group ate the usual pelleted concentrate.

The results showed that the cheese made from the leaves group contained a higher percentage of healthy fatty acids while the saturated fat percentages were significantly less than the control group. Interestingly, the leaves group’s milk yield was also greater than the control group.

According to the researchers, the leaves group’s cheese also had more cheese fat content. Its profile, though, showed higher levels of monounsaturated fatty acids.

The increased n‑3 polyunsaturated fatty acids in the leaves group’s cheese reduced the atherogenic and thrombogenic indexes and increased peroxidability but not the hydroperoxide content. While vitamins and cholesterol did not differ between the groups, the researchers found varying antioxidant concentrations in the resulting cheese.

After a rest period of 60 days, an untrained panel of consumers was asked to evaluate both groups’ cheese. The panel members did not notice any relevant differences during their first blind tasting. After being told about the organoleptic characteristics of the leaves group’s cheese, the panel indicated a greater appreciation for it than the control group’s cheese.

Introducing their research, the scientists noted how both olive cultivation and sheep farming are important activities in the Mediterranean Basin. About 98 percent of olive oil and 46 percent of sheep milk originate from the area.

Increasing numbers of olive leaves are discarded during olive transformation every year. The mechanization of the harvesting operation has been shown to create a tenfold increase in olive leaf biomass.

On top of this, the researchers noted that olive leaves are suitable food for sheep and explained that the process of incorporating olive leaves into sheep feed is quite simple. As an added bonus, the leaves are carriers of crucial bioactive compounds, such as phenols, tocopherols and carotenoids.

“The results presented in this study indicated that inclusion of olive leaves in the diet of grazing lactating sheep improved yield, antioxidant capacity and fatty acid profile in a model cheese,” the researchers wrote in their conclusion.

“In addition, the consumer test revealed that the general satisfaction increased after informed tasting only for the experimental cheese,” they wrote.

“Therefore, our findings suggest that the use of agro-industrial by-products, besides representing an interesting strategy to improve animal product quality and food chain sustainability, could be a valuable strategy to add value to animal food products,” they concluded.

• Dietary olive leaves improve the quality and the consumer preferences of a model sheep cheese

According to a pilot study published by Nutrients, consuming extra virgin olive oil over six months improves BBB function and enhances brain connectivity.

Besides the extra virgin olive oil effect on BBB permeability, the researchers have also shown how consuming refined olive oil might benefit clinical dementia and Alzheimer’s disease biomarkers.

“Considering the small number of participants and the short-term study, this must be considered preliminary research which hints at several relevant benefits for olive oil consumption. More extensive studies will be needed to additionally assess and confirm the impact of olive oil on brain functionality,” Amal Kaddoumi, professor at the Harrison College of Pharmacy of Auburn University in Alabama, told Olive Oil Times.

While the researchers’ previous studies have shown the beneficial effects of extra virgin olive oil consumption in mice, and other research has shown EVOO’s positive impact on humans’ cognitive health, “our study is the first to investigate what happens to the brain directly,” Kaddoumi explained.

The scientists noted that BBB-reduced functionality is a common characteristic of mild cognitive impairment and early Alzheimer’s disease. This tends to lead to abnormal BBB permeability, which might contribute to the development of dementia.

“As shown by research, as we age, the BBB functionality is reduced and tends to become leaky. It is a highly relevant guard that keeps blood-derived content out of the brain and clears brain waste products into the blood. When some diseases are involved, such as Alzheimer’s, BBB ability might be seriously compromised. That means that the brain can be exposed to neurotoxic substances, and the waste disposal ability is reduced to the point that neurotoxins start accumulating in the brain,” Kaddoumi explained, hinting at how such conditions could lead to several neurodegenerative diseases.

The study’s authors focused on 25 individuals affected by mild cognitive impairment.

They assessed the effect of daily consumption of EVOO and refined olive oil for six months on BBB permeability and brain function. Additionally, they looked for cognitive function changes and Alzheimer’s disease blood biomarkers.

“EVOO significantly improved clinical dementia rating and behavioral scores. extra virgin olive oil also reduced BBB permeability and enhanced brain functional connectivity,” the researchers wrote.

“While refined olive oil consumption did not alter BBB permeability or brain connectivity, it improved clinical dementia rating scores and increased functional brain activation to a memory task in cortical regions involved in perception and cognition,” they added.

EVOO impacts had been suggested by previous research, but the current study also showed a potential beneficial role played by refined olive oil. Interestingly, both extra virgin and refined olive oils produced a significant reduction in Aβ42/Aβ40 and p‑tau/t‑tau ratios, suggesting that both types of olive oil altered the processing and clearance of amyloid (Aβ). This result hints at the ability of both olive oil types to curtail Alzheimer’s disease onset.

The results for refined olive oil consumption surprised the researchers, who had initially considered the participants consuming refined olive oil as the control group.

“We did not expect such effects from refined olive oil consumption. We do need larger studies to make definitive conclusions. However, we should not underestimate the potentially beneficial health effects of the olive oil’s oleic acid content, which is found in both, extra virgin olive oil and refined olive oil,” Kaddoumi noted.

Given the results, Kaddoumi discussed the need for future studies to explore how the different grades of olive oil impact various ethnic groups over a much extended period.

Besides that, Kaddoumi noted that researchers also need to explore the effects of extra virgin olive oil and refined olive oil on patients with advanced cognitive impairment and other co-existing conditions.

The researchers underlined how their previous studies in mice might suggest that olive oil consumption could be beneficial for advanced stages of brain diseases. “But that is not what we explored in our pilot study, so we cannot say anything about it. That is an area of research we hope to investigate in the future,” Kaddoumi noted.

On the other hand, extra virgin olive oil consumption might also have a protective effect on cognitively normal individuals and those with mild cognitive impairment.

“Those who do not have a cognitive condition might well consider including extra virgin olive oil in their diet as a substitute for other fats they might be using because it can prevent and protect their brains or at least delay the onset of cognitive conditions,” the Auburn University professor explained.

“In conclusion, extra virgin olive oil and refined olive oil improved clinical dementia rating and behavioral scores; only extra virgin olive oil enhanced brain connectivity and reduced BBB permeability, suggesting extra virgin olive oil bio-phenols contributed to such an effect. This proof-of-concept study justifies further clinical trials to assess olive oil’s protective effects against Alzheimer’s disease and its potential role in preventing mild cognitive impairment conversion to Alzheimer’s and related dementias,” the researchers wrote.

“We must also sincerely thank those who collaborated and contributed to the research and even more those who accepted to participate in this study. They were very excited about participating. Many had a family history and found a great interest in the study, which was so important for them,” Kaddoumi concluded.

• The new research

According to the study, shifting to the Mediterranean Diet when pregnant may lower the likelihood of the mother developing a depressive mood disorder or pre-pregnancy obesity. Furthermore, the Mediterranean Diet might also curtail obesity in children.

The goal of the project was to investigate how the Mediterranean Diet might impact psychosocial and physiologic stressors associated with pregnancy. These often cause inflammatory conditions that could create future health problems for both mother and child.

The paper’s authors used a sample of the U.S. population to investigate the reported health benefits of the Mediterranean Diet in both Mediterranean and non-Mediterranean countries.

“In particular, a Mediterranean-style dietary pattern has been associated with a number of positive health outcomes, including lower levels of cardiovascular disease, cancer, and inflammation and greater longevity,” they wrote.

Researchers explained that approximately one in ten women of reproductive age suffers from depression, with 29 percent of childbearing women being obese. These conditions have been correlated with childhood obesity, child neurodevelopmental issues and chronic disease for both mother and child later in life.

The study involved 929 mother-child dyads from the Newborn Epigenetic Study (NEST), a prospective cohort study. Epigenetics investigates the interaction of gene expressions with a person’s environment and behavior. NEST participants were presented with food frequency questionnaires to assess their dietary habits and the correlation between those habits and health outcomes.

The researchers noted that other studies based on NEST have shown that maternal dietary habits affect offspring behavior for up to 24 months after birth and suggest a link with epigenetic mechanisms.

“We aimed to evaluate the relations between maternal Mediterranean diet adherence (MDA) and maternal and offspring outcomes during the first decade of life in African Americans, Hispanics, and Whites,” the scientists wrote.

“Because racial/ethnic disparities exist in the outcomes of interest, we assessed associations with diet by race,” they added, hinting at the many threads of investigation. The researchers examined incidences of depression, pre-pregnancy obesity, and gestational weight gain in the mothers. Weight at birth and weight gain in young childhood was the data gathered from the children.

Of the 929 dyads, the 341 Black/African American and 225 Hispanic women were on average younger than the 317 White participants. The Black/African American and Hispanic women were also more likely to be obese before pregnancy.

“The prevalence of depressive symptoms was 26 percent overall, and Black/African American women also reported a higher level of depressive symptoms than White and Hispanic women,” the researchers noted in their results.

Approximately 49 percent of the sample gained more weight than recommended during pregnancy.

Still, researchers found that adhering to a Mediterranean Diet was associated with a lower risk of pre-pregnancy obesity, even if it did not appear to impact gestational weight gain. Among the different ethnicities, Hispanic women enjoyed the most protective effect of the Mediterranean Diet against depression. For all women, better adherence to the Mediterranean Diet translated into improved results.

The study’s authors noted that their results showed positive associations between adhering to the Mediterranean Diet from conception and lower pre-pregnancy weight, lower depression and improved weight-to-height outcomes in children between three and eight years of age. However, such effects vary considerably among the ethnicities involved.

“These data support European clinical trials data suggesting that Mediterranean-style diet is perhaps a potent avenue for preventing adverse maternal and offspring prenatal and early postnatal outcomes, including prenatal depressive mood and childhood obesity, which disproportionately affect Blacks/African Americans. In our study, MDA differed starkly by race/ethnicity, with non-Hispanic White mothers reporting the highest MDA and non-Hispanic Black mothers reporting the lowest MDA. The stark differences in MDA by race/ethnicity showcase the need for interventions to support healthy eating among populations of color in the United States,” the researchers wrote.

In their conclusion, the scientists wrote how adhering to a Mediterranean Diet from the earliest stages of pregnancy “appears to convey psychosocial and physiologic health benefits to mothers and their unborn children, although racial/ethnic disparities exist in dietary intake. The racial/ethnic disparities seen in diet pattern are rooted in inequities related to the social determinants of health.” They also called for more extensive studies covering wider, more heterogeneous samples of the population.

“Given the many benefits of adherence to a Mediterranean-style dietary pattern, interventions addressing these issues, in addition to studies of mechanism and racial/ethnic differences in outcomes, are needed,” they concluded.

• The new research

While the negative impacts of high-sodium diets on cardiovascular health are well-established, the University of Edinburgh and Erasmus University Rotterdam researchers said their goal was to investigate the less-studied effects of high sodium consumption on cognitive function and behavior.

They found that mice fed a high-salt diet experienced an increase in resting and environmental stress hormones compared to mice eating their ordinary diet, which is low in salt.

Furthermore, mice consuming a high-salt diet had double the hormonal response to environmental stressors than mice following their regular diet.

The researchers concluded that salt intake stimulated the activity of the genes that produce the proteins in the brain that control how the body responds to stress.

After two weeks of following the high-salt diet, they also detected a reduced ability for the mice to suppress the activated stress hormones naturally.

In turn, this reduced ability to naturally suppress the stress hormones resulted in increased exposure to the hippocampus, anterior pituitary and liver, which researchers hypothesized may contribute to the long-term health consequences of high salt intake.

The researchers hope the findings of this study will encourage policymakers to emphasize low-sodium diets and persuade food manufacturers to cut the amount of sodium used in processed foods.

Recommended salt intake for adults is less than six grams each day. However, many people regularly consume at least nine grams.

While the Cleveland Clinic, a leading research and teaching hospital, advises people trying to reduce sodium intake to cut out table olives, the American Heart Association recommends the Mediterranean diet for people looking to reduce salt consumption.

“We are what we eat, and understanding how high-salt food changes our mental health is an important step to improving wellbeing,” Matthew Bailey, a renal physiology professor at the University of Edinburgh, told Food Navigator.

“We know that eating too much salt damages our heart, blood vessels and kidneys,” he added. “This study tells us that high salt in our food also changes the way our brain handles stress.”

Further studies are underway to determine whether high salt intake may result in other behavioral changes, including increased anxiety and aggression.

• Food Navigator
• American Heart Association
• Cleveland Clinic

However, not all olive oil is created equally. Most celebrated health benefits of olive oil belong to a single grade: extra virgin olive oil.

Extra virgin olive oil is made solely by mechanical methods, without heat or powerful petrochemical solvents used to produce refined olive oil and nearly every other edible oil. As a result, extra virgin olive oil retains the compounds that endow its numerous health benefits.

Thousands of studies have been published linking extra virgin olive oil consumption with a wide range of benefits, from its well-known heart-healthy qualities to more obscure ones, such as increasing testosterone in men with insufficient levels.

But what is it that makes extra virgin olive oil better than the rest? And why exactly is Homer’s “liquid gold” good for you?

Monounsaturated fats promote heart health

For thousands of years, the people of the Mediterranean basin have consumed olive oil as the main source of dietary fat.

Anecdotal evidence suggested they lived longer and healthier lives than their animal-fat-consuming neighbors to the north and across the Atlantic.

In 1958, Ancel Keys, a physiologist at the University of Minnesota, postulated a correlation between people’s diets and the observed incidents of coronary heart disease.

Keys’ landmark Seven Countries Study was the first to suggest that not all dietary fats are created equal.

The study’s findings showed that Greeks had lower rates of heart disease despite their high-fat diet, with olive oil being the main source of fat.

Other countries with high-fat diets from meat had higher rates of heart disease, suggesting that the type of fat consumed made a difference. The findings propelled the Mediterranean diet to popularity and fame outside of the Mediterranean basin.

Olive oil is about 73 percent monounsaturated fat by volume. The other 25 percent is saturated fats (14 percent) and polyunsaturated fats (11 percent).

Monounsaturated fats are fat molecules with fewer hydrogen atoms bonded to their carbon chain and a curved double-carbon bond, which makes them liquid at room temperature.

All fats – from saturated and trans to monounsaturated and polyunsaturated – help the body absorb vitamins and minerals, build cell membranes and are essential for the mechanisms that cause blood clotting, muscle movement and inflammation.

Substituting saturated and trans fat with monounsaturated fat helps to lower low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, also known as ‘bad cholesterol,’ which reduces the risk for heart disease and stroke.

In short, the fat type of extra virgin olive oil is mostly comprised is partially responsible for its cardiovascular health benefits.

Polyphenols are the powerful antioxidants that make extra virgin olive oil superior

While its monounsaturated fat content is certainly one of the main drivers behind olive oil’s heart health, its myriad of other benefits are ascribed to its phenolic content.

Polyphenols are attributed to 99 percent of olive oil’s health benefits, according to Nasir Malik, a plant physiologist at the United States Department of Agriculture’s research service.

Polyphenol is an umbrella term for a class of organic chemicals found in several types of plants and works as a powerful antioxidant. More than 8,000 polyphenols have been identified, and extra virgin olive oil has 25 different polyphenols.

Hundreds of studies over the years have shown that polyphenols are responsible for a range of benefits from lowering the risk of prostate and breast cancer to mitigating the effects of dementia.

What does the latest research say about the health benefits of extra virgin olive oil?

New research on the health benefits of olive oil is constantly being published by both publicly funded and private entities. We’ve included some of the most salient points below to help parse the vast amount of information available on the topic.

Extra virgin olive oil and cardiovascular disease

According to the World Health Organization, cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death globally.

In 2019 alone, an estimated 17.9 million people died from cardiovascular diseases, including heart attacks and strokes. The World Health Organization estimated cardiovascular disease was responsible for nearly one-third of global deaths that year.

However, an April 2020 study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology concluded that consuming just a half-table spoon (8.8 milliliters) of olive oil daily could lower the risk of contracting heart disease by 14 percent. Researchers arrived at this result after monitoring health and diet data from 93,000 adults for 24 years.

Although the researchers told Olive Oil Times that it was impossible to know what grade of olive oil the participants consumed (i.e., refined, virgin or extra virgin), they said that the benefits were more likely to have come from EVOO.

Extra virgin olive oil consumption helps to lower the risk of contracting cardiovascular disease in a few key ways.

EVOO improves endothelial function

One small-scale study published by the Yale-Griffin Prevention Center at Yale University in February 2021 found that high-polyphenol extra virgin olive oil consumption improved endothelial function in adults at risk of contracting type 2 diabetes.

Endothelial function measures how well blood vessels expand when blood is pumped through them and is an independent predictor for cardiovascular disease.

The polyphenols in the extra virgin olive oil modulated oxidative stress in the blood vessels, lowering inflammation, a common symptom in many heart disease and stroke patients.

Extra virgin olive oil consumption reduces blood pressure

A separate study from researchers in Australia found that consuming four tablespoons (60 milliliters) of high-polyphenol extra virgin olive oil “significantly reduced” peripheral and central systolic blood pressure.

Previous research published in The Lancet demonstrated that lowering systolic blood pressure reduced cardiovascular disease, coronary heart disease, stroke and heart failure risk.

EVOO lowers ‘bad’ cholesterol and raises ‘good’ cholesterol

Cholesterol is a waxy substance that circulates in the blood and helps to construct cells, make vitamins and produce hormones. There are two types of cholesterol: LDL or ‘bad’ cholesterol and high-density lipoprotein (HDL) or ‘good’ cholesterol.

High LDL cholesterol levels are bad for the cardiovascular system because they contribute to fatty buildups in the arteries – known as atherosclerosis – which increases the risk of heart attack and stroke.

On the other hand, HDL cholesterol carries LDL cholesterol away from the arteries and takes it to the liver to be broken down and removed from the body.

As previously mentioned, the monounsaturated fat in extra virgin olive oil also helps to lower LDL cholesterol.

However, a 2015 study determined that the polyphenols found in extra virgin olive oil also play a significant role by preventing HDL cholesterol from being damaged by oxidative stress, which improves its ability to transport LDL cholesterol away from the arterial walls.

Extra virgin olive oil helps regulate blood glucose levels

An estimated 422 million people have diabetes globally. Of these, about 90 percent have type 2 diabetes.

Type 2 diabetes is caused when cells in the body do not normally respond to insulin, so the pancreas continues to produce more of it to try and elicit a response.

This causes blood sugars to rise to unhealthy levels, leading to other health problems such as heart disease, vision loss and kidney disease.

There is no cure for diabetes, but extra virgin olive oil consumption has been linked to some benefits in diabetic people.

A 2017 study found that participants who consumed high levels of polyphenols had a 57 percent lower chance of developing type 2 diabetes over two to four years.

One of the reasons why the consumption of polyphenols lowered the chances of an individual’s developing type 2 diabetes may be that polyphenols help stimulate insulin secretion, which moves sugar from the bloodstream and deposits it into cells. This keeps blood sugar levels stable.

Furthermore, a 2017 meta-analysis of four cohort studies comprising 15,784 participants found that people who consumed the highest levels of olive oil had a 16-percent reduced risk of type 2 diabetes compared to those who consumed the lowest amounts.

Polyphenol-rich diets are linked to lower fasting blood sugar levels and higher glucose tolerance, reducing the risk of contracting type 2 diabetes.

Olive oil and cancer prevention

Along with cardiovascular disease, cancer is one of the leading causes of death worldwide. According to the WHO, 10 million people died from cancer in 2020.

However, landmark research in 2015 demonstrated that oleocanthal, a polyphenol found in extra virgin olive oil, can disrupt and even kill cancer cells.

Oleocanthal does this by causing a rupture in part of the cancerous cells, which releases an enzyme that causes the cell’s death without harming healthy cells.

EVOO-based treatments show promise in fighting breast and colon cancer

This study had a snowballing effect in the cancer research world and has led to the development of oleocanthal-based treatments against certain forms of breast cancer.

Researchers at the University of Louisiana-Monroe previously found that an oleocanthal-based treatment may suppress the initiation and progression of triple-negative breast cancer, the most deadly kind.

Previous epidemiological studies of Mediterranean populations following a traditional Mediterranean diet rich in extra virgin olive oil found lower cases of breast cancer and colon cancer than other European or North American populations.

A study published in 2014 demonstrated that in a laboratory setting, hydroxytyrosol, secoiridoids and lignans, three types of polyphenols, inhibited the growth of colon cancer cells.

The polyphenols did so by mimicking the signal sent by estrogen receptor β, which is the body’s natural defense against the growth of cancer cells in the colon. The disease only begins to proliferate when the signals this receptor sends fade.

According to the WHO, breast cancer is the most common type of cancer and the fifth-most deadly. Colon cancer is the third most common and second most deadly.

Mediterranean diet associated with lower risk of bladder and prostate cancer

Since the discovery of the role of polyphenols in fighting cancer development in the mid-2010s, plenty of research has been dedicated to the role of the Mediterranean diet in fighting cancer.

Along with EVOO, the Mediterranean diet includes consuming plenty of fruits, vegetables, seeds and whole grains, many of which contain other polyphenols.

A meta-analysis of 13 studies conducted in 2019 found that medium to high adherence to a traditional Mediterranean diet appeared to have a protective effect against bladder cancer.

While the researchers could not isolate any particular food that appeared to be having the desired effects against bladder cancer, experts suggested how the foods combined during digestion and their anti-inflammatory properties played a role in yielding the results.

Consuming a Mediterranean diet has also been associated with a decreased risk of prostate cancer in men. Diets high in trans fats and saturated fats lead to oxidative stress in bladder cells, leading to DNA damage. This DNA damage may lead to cell mutations, causing cancerous tumors.

However, the polyphenols found in extra virgin olive oil and other foods of the Mediterranean diet have the opposite effect, preventing oxidative stress in these cells and, therefore the development of cancerous tumors.

Extra virgin olive oil and dementia

Researchers warn that by 2050, more than 153 million people could have dementia worldwide, nearly triple that of 2019.

However, lower levels of dementia have been observed in populations living in the Mediterranean region for many years.

Observational and controlled trials have shown that adherence to the Mediterranean diet and extra virgin olive oil consumption is associated with improved memory and cognition in the elderly.

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common type of dementia. It begins to occur when deposits of beta-amyloid proteins form plaque in the brain that eventually disrupts nerve cell functions and causes neurons to die.

Laboratory and animal experiments have both demonstrated that oleocanthal promotes the production of two other proteins that play an important role in preventing plaque buildup in the brain.

Further research also showed that oleocanthal modulates the complementary peptide C3a receptor 1 (C3AR1).

In Alzheimer’s patients, C3AR1 overworks and causes inflammation that impairs the function of the innate immune system. The oleocanthal’s anti-inflammatory properties prevent C3AR1 from overworking and reduce the inflammation linked to Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases.

EVOO has other health benefits too

While extra virgin olive oil’s health benefits are most widely associated with mitigating the risk of cardiovascular disease and dementia and preventing cancer, numerous other studies show a range of benefits from its consumption for other parts of the body.

For example, a 2021 study found that following the Mediterranean diet may delay the onset of Parkinson’s disease by up to 17 years for women and eight years for men.

Parkinson’s disease is a degenerative disease of the central nervous system that has no cure. Researchers said that the polyphenols found in extra virgin olive oil protect against the disease by reducing oxidative stress in the brain.

Another study published last year showed that diets high in monounsaturated fast, such as the Mediterranean diet, boosted testosterone levels in men with insufficient amounts. Low levels of testosterone in men have been linked in previous studies to depression, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and dementia.

Researchers in Spain also published a study in 2021 that found systemic lupus erythematosus patients who followed the Mediterranean diet experienced an improvement in the course of the disease.

Lupus, an autoimmune disease, has no cure, but patients who followed the Mediterranean diet had lower rates of obesity and cardiovascular disease, both of which are common comorbidities for patients.

This article section could be extended into a book, if not an encyclopedia. Some studies link adherence to the Mediterranean diet with lower levels of rheumatoid arthritis in smokers, decreased risk of the small for gestational age condition in newborns, improved stress management and restored healthy gut bacteria in the digestive tract, which helps with weight loss.

Summing it all up

Extra virgin olive oil’s monounsaturated fat content and its polyphenols provide innumerable health benefits.

EVOO is the keystone ingredient of the Mediterranean diet. It is no coincidence the eating program was just named the best overall diet for the fifth year running by U.S. News & World Report.

Consuming between one and four tablespoons (18 and 70 milliliters) of extra virgin olive oil per day will begin to provide the many health benefits associated with Homer’s “liquid gold.”

However, extra virgin olive oil is far from a silver bullet. To enjoy its health benefits, extra virgin olive oil consumption should be part of a nourishing diet along with plenty of exercise and other healthy lifestyle choices (i.e., drinking alcohol in moderation, not smoking and finding ways to destress).

Where to find the best extra virgin olive oil

The retail finder on the Official Guide to the World’s Best Olive Oils makes it easy to find award-winning extra virgin olive oils near you or through online retailers.

The meta-analysis of 44 studies and 40 academic articles from Asia, Europe, the Americas and Australia found that polyphenol consumption decreased body weight, body mass index and waist circumference in adults. However, researchers found no significant effect on lowering body fat percentage.

“The main results of this meta-analysis demonstrated that intake of polyphenols significantly reduced body weight by 0.36 kilograms, body mass index by 0.13 kilogram-meters-squared and waist circumference by 0.6 centimeters compared to placebo treatments,” the researchers wrote.

They said a possible explanation for these findings might be the appetite-suppressing hormones in some polyphenols.

The researchers added that improved lipid and carbohydrate digestion, stimulation of energy expenditure, reduced oxidative stress and improved gut microbiota due to polyphenol consumption may also have contributed.

According to the World Health Organization, obesity has tripled globally since 1975. As of 2016, the last year the WHO has available data, more than 650 million adults were obese.

Being overweight and obese have overwhelmingly been linked with many chronic diseases, including cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death worldwide.

The researchers concluded that consuming polyphenols should be considered as part of a dietary and lifestyle intervention to prevent and treat obesity.

Yi Zhang, the lead author of the analysis and a dietician, initially started the research due to a lack of safe and effective treatments and interventions for obesity and the scarcity of human clinical trials testing the impacts of polyphenols on obesity.

She told Olive Oil Times that the study mainly focussed on a group of polyphenols known as flavonoids and several non-flavonoids, including stilbenes, tannins and curcuminoids.

“Most research about polyphenols focuses on flavonoids and non-flavonoids,” Zhang said. “Drinking tea is the most popular way to consume polyphenols, along with eating fruits and vegetables.”

The analysis found that flavonoids – specifically, anthocyanidins (found in berries, cherries, dark leafy greens, eggplant, cabbage, purple potatoes and red onions), flavanols (found in types of tea, red wine and cocoa), flavonols (found in yellow and red onion, kale, spinach, broccoli and leeks) and isoflavones (found in legumes) – were the most effective in decreasing obesity-related measures.

The researchers hypothesized that this might be partially due to their impact on gut microbiota in the gastrointestinal tract and anti-inflammatory properties.

Zhang said the research focussed on studies where the polyphenols had been isolated and consumed in either capsule or tea form to investigate how the individual polyphenols impacted obesity without the confounding variables of how they relate to other micro- and macronutrients.

As a result, she did not investigate any phenolic compounds in extra virgin olive oil, the most prominent of which are tyrosols, simple phenols.

“My meta-analysis is about the pure polyphenols or pure extracts of single polyphenols, not the inclusion of the whole food,” Zhang said. “Most olive oil studies include all its polyphenols.”

However, she added, more research on the impacts of polyphenols on obesity should be done, specifically focussing on their role in obesity prevention in non-obese men and women and weight loss in obese men and women.

Zhang added that the impact of the individual polyphenols in olive oil should be further investigated, especially because of the known links between olive oil consumption and improved gut microbial profiles.

“There are many ways to decrease weight, especially through stimulating energy expenditure in the form of the gut microbiota… and reducing inflammation,” Zhang said. “This is the most interesting way olive oil polyphenols could impact obesity research.”

Some evidence suggests that following the traditional Mediterranean diet might help prevent infection.

Compared to other diets, such as the Western diet, the Mediterranean diet seems capable of containing inflammation and inhibiting potentially deadly Covid-19 consequences such as cytokine storms.

The research, published by the Journal of Physiology and Biochemistry, gathered the available data on key elements of the Mediterranean diet, such as its phenolic compounds, looking at their potential impact in preventing or treating Covid-19 infection.

“In contrast with the potential beneficial effects of the Mediterranean diet, Western diets are related to systemic inflammation, increased oxidative stress and lower immune response, and thus may increase the severity of Covid-19 patients,” the researchers wrote.

“These effects are due to their high content of saturated fat, refined carbohydrates and sugar, and to their low content of fiber,” they added.

In the introduction of the study, the researchers pointed out how the Mediterranean diet has been credited in several previous studies with reducing the risks of developing common severe conditions such as metabolic syndrome or cardiovascular disease.

“Current evidence supports the potential benefits that hydroxytyrosol, resveratrol, flavonols such as quercetin, flavanols like catechins, and flavanones on the order of naringenin could have on Covid-19,” the authors wrote.

However, the scientists acknowledged that the impacts of these polyphenols commonly found in Mediterranean diet foods on Covid-19 have yet to be proven.

Still, they wrote, “these bioactive compounds show biological activities that can be useful to prevent this infection and or to improve its prognosis.”

The researchers analyzed the properties of the polyphenols, such as their antioxidant activity, which might control inflammation and the release of free radicals.

More specifically, researchers highlighted how hydroxytyrosol suppresses two enzymes: Matrix metalloproteinase‑9 (MMP‑9) and Cyclo-oxygenase‑2 (COX‑2). MMP‑9 is considered responsible for allowing inflammation to spread to the lungs.

Scientists believe that MMP‑9 and COX‑2 play an active role in causing the cytokine storm, one of the most deadly conditions caused by Covid-19.

Hydroxytyrosol is one of the most relevant phenols in extra virgin olive oil due to its ability to protect blood lipids from oxidative stress. It is also credited with antiviral properties.

Researchers also observed in a laboratory setting that resveratrol, a polyphenol commonly found in Mediterranean diet foods, has demonstrated the ability to inhibit respiratory viruses.

One of the reasons for this impact is its ability to trigger the nuclear factor erythroid 2‑related factor 2 (Nrf2), which improves cellular antioxidant defenses. Both hydroxytyrosol and resveratrol are considered crucial in modulating the Nrf2 defenses.

“The activation of Nrf2 has been postulated as a potential therapeutic target against this disease since it is known to protect from lung injuries such as acute lung injury or respiratory distress syndrome,” the researchers wrote.

The paper’s authors believe that resveratrol could also help prevent excessive inflammation and result in even more benefits to patients with common conditions such as atherosclerosis or hypertension.

The flavonoids found in the Mediterranean diet were also investigated for their potentially beneficial impacts.

“The antibacterial and anticancer properties of flavonoids are widely known. Moreover, these compounds, commonly found in the Mediterranean diet, have the ability to sequester free radicals,” the scientists wrote.

While flavonoids might activate the Nrf2 pathway and modulate the inflammatory process, researchers warned that further studies are needed to assess such potential.

Flavonols such as quercetin might contribute to preventing the acute kidney damage caused by Covid-19, the activation of harmful macrophages and the protection of the Nrf2 factor.

The interest in quercetin’s anti-inflammatory and antiviral effects is also due to its ubiquity in foods highly associated with the Mediterranean diet, including apples, grapes and onions. “It represents the most abundant flavonoid in the human diet,” the researchers said.

In their conclusions, the researchers highlighted how the lack of evidence of polyphenols’ impact on Covid-19 should be addressed, and more studies are needed.

“Nevertheless, numerous studies have demonstrated that these molecules induce positive effects on several alterations induced by this disease under conditions other than SARS-COV‑2 infection, such as oxidative stress, inflammation, and thrombosis,” they wrote.

“This scientific information is valuable and suggests that the phenolic compounds of the Mediterranean diet may represent a potential protective factor against Covid-19. Still, caution must be taken when connecting preexisting data to this new infection”, the researchers added.

“In addition to the beneficial effects on Covid-19 outcomes mediated by their antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects, the Mediterranean diet polyphenols can also act through other mechanisms that are not addressed in this review article,” they concluded.

The Olive Wellness Institute, a prominent olive oil science organization, said the study’s conclusions “should be interpreted with extreme caution.”

In the study, Swedish researchers found that participants following a modified Mediterranean diet, where the main dietary fat is comprised of olive oil and vegetable oil due to low olive oil consumption in Sweden, saw no reduced dementia risk either.

Traditionally, extra virgin olive oil is the main dietary fat in the Mediterranean diet.

The institute did not criticize the methods or merits of the research but questioned whether a plant-based diet where extra virgin olive oil is not the main dietary fat should be referred to as a “Mediterranean diet.”

The institute added that the omission of other main components of the Mediterranean diet, including soffritto, an olive oil-based sauce, and the grouping of legumes with other vegetables, further modified the diet.

“Our concern with this approach is that by using a locally devised score as a surrogate for the Mediterranean diet, the authors have excluded principal sources of the anti-inflammatory and antioxidant polyphenols found in extra virgin olive oil, culinary herbs and spices, and legumes,” the institute said.

As a result, the institute’s experts said using the term ‘modified Mediterranean diet’ was misleading. They emphasized the role of extra virgin olive oil in the diet’s well-studied health benefits.

“Like studies that use the Mediterranean diet score or other versions of a Mediterranean diet that do not include extra virgin olive oil, this study shows no improvement in health,” the institute said.

It added that extra virgin olive oil has a different fatty acid profile and contains different phenolic compounds – including hydroxytyrosol, oleocanthal and oleuropein – than other vegetable or seed oils.

These polyphenols resulted in a European Food Safety Authority-certified health claim that says, “polyphenols protect against lipid peroxidation at a minimal dose of 5 milligrams per kilogram per day which is equivalent to 23 grams of extra virgin olive oil.”

“The same health benefits are not associated with olive oil that is not extra virgin, nor with vegetable or seed oils,” the institute added.

Several recent studies have demonstrated the benefit of following the Mediterranean diet on cognition and brain function, especially in older adults.

A 2021 study published in Clinical Nutrition found that participants experienced “small-to-moderate” improvements in several cognitive domains after following the Mediterranean diet for three years compared with a control group. Improvements included spatial, visual and verbal memory improvements and attention span.

In a 2022 study from Harvard University, researchers found that following a green Mediterranean diet low in red meat intake protected the brain from attenuated age-related brain atrophy.

“One could consider that the lack of impact on dementia identified in this study could be due to the lack of extra virgin olive oil in the modified Mediterranean diet used,” the institute said.

“Furthermore, and as noted by the authors of the study, the assessment of self-reported dietary intake does present certain limitations due to human recall bias factors, and future studies should aim to include objective biomarkers of dietary intake such as plasma polyphenols or nutrigenomics,” the institute added.

The Olive Wellness Institute concluded its response by urging people curious to learn more about the impacts of following the Mediterranean diet to consider all the evidence on the subject instead of focusing on any single study.

• Olive Wellness Institute

Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Utah-Salt Lake City evaluated the diets of 116 adults between the ages of 25 and 58 over 12 months.

Study participants met with dieticians individually to discuss their nutrition and were instructed to track everything they ate and drank daily for a year. They also wore a FitBit to track physical activity and were asked to weigh themselves daily.

In self-assessments calculated using a Healthy Eating Index (HEI) score of zero to 100, most participants inaccurately assessed the degree to which their diets had improved over the 12 months.

The HEI is a standard research tool that compares an individual’s eating habits with the dietary recommendations of the United States government.

Over the year, participants improved their diet quality by about one point, according to the researchers. However, according to their self-assessment, participants believed they had improved their scores by 18 points.

Furthermore, the researchers found that only one in 10 participants accurately self-assessed the quality of their diets based on the HEI.

“People attempting to lose weight or health professionals who are helping people with weight loss or nutrition-related goals should be aware that there is likely more room for improvement in the diet than may be expected,” said Jessica Cheng, one of the study’s authors and a postdoctoral research fellow in epidemiology at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health.

She added that while people generally know that fruits and vegetables are healthy, there are many other disconnects between public perception of what foods are healthy and the current scientific literature.

“Future studies should examine the effects of helping people close the gap between their perceptions and objective diet quality measurements,” Cheng said.

While the researchers acknowledged that only limited conclusions might be drawn from the study due to its small sample size and over-representation of female participants, they said that the subject matter remains poignant.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly half of adults in the United States attempt to lose weight each year. Furthermore, a CDC survey found that obesity prevalence was nearly 42 percent in the U.S. from 2017 to 2020.

According to the centers, “the estimated annual medical cost of obesity in the United States was nearly $173 billion in 2019 dollars. Medical costs for adults who had obesity were $1,861 higher than medical costs for people with a healthy weight.”

Deepika Laddu, chair of the American Heart Association’s council on lifestyle behavioral change for improving health factors, said this disconnect between people’s perception of their diets and how healthy their eating patterns actually are might have negative health consequences.

“Overestimating the perceived healthiness of food intake could lead to weight gain, frustrations over not meeting personal weight loss goals or lower likelihood of adopting healthier eating habits,” she said.

“While misperception of diet intake is common among dieters, these findings provide additional support for behavioral counseling interventions that include more frequent contacts with health care professionals, such as dieticians or health coaches, to address the gaps in perception and support long-lasting, realistic healthy eating behaviors,” Laddu concluded.

• American Heart Association

An opinion and debate article published by the Society for the Study of Addiction investigated if and how consuming ultra-processed food might lead to a life-threatening addiction.

Previous research has shown that frequent, high-volume consumption of ultra-processed food has been linked with an increase in heart attacks, strokes and premature death.

The increasingly apparent negative impacts of ultra-processed food on health prompted several authorities and researchers to recommend that companies indicate whether a product is ultra-processed on its labels.

Now, researchers are investigating whether an addictive-eating phenotype may exist, particularly involving foods with refined carbohydrates and added fats (HPFs).

“The lack of scientifically grounded criteria to evaluate the addictive nature of HPFs has hindered the resolution of this debate,” researchers wrote.

They said evidence of an existing phenotype exists that reflects the “hallmarks of addiction” in some consumers, such as loss of control over intake, intense cravings, inability to cut down and continued use despite negative consequences.

Additionally, excessive food intake has been linked with symptoms of other addictive disorders, including low quality of life or adverse reactions to weight-loss treatments.

The study’s authors also acknowledged that other researchers tend to believe that food addiction does not depend on the type of food but on the act of eating, making it impossible to classify specific food as addictive.

“HPFs are evolutionarily novel products made possible through modern food technology that provide refined and rapidly delivered primary reinforcers, specifically calories, in the form of refined carbohydrates and added fats,” researchers wrote.

“The debate that remains concerns whether a refined and optimized delivery system of calories can produce comparative effects to a refined and optimized delivery system of addictive drugs,” they added.

In 1988, the U.S. Surgeon General issued a report identifying tobacco products as addictive based on scientific criteria, including their ability to cause highly controlled or compulsive use, psychoactive or mood-altering effects and ability to reinforce behavior.

The study explained how HPFs are “complex substances that are psychoactive, highly reinforcing, strongly craved and consumed compulsively,” similar to tobacco products.

“The foods that people report being most likely to consume in an addictive manner are all HPFs that deliver both refined carbohydrates and added fats,” the researchers wrote, citing chocolate, ice cream, French fries and pizza as relevant examples.

HPF foods high in refined carbohydrates without high levels of fat, such as breakfast cereal, gummy candy and soft drinks, are also associated with an addictive-eating phenotype.

These HPF foods deliver high doses of refined carbohydrates and fats, which the researchers described as “unnatural” because they depend on “significant changes to the food matrix during processing that removes ingredients that would slow down the eating rate and absorption (e.g., water and fiber).”

Given their nutrient density and quick bioavailability, HPFs activate the body’s natural reward system through the gut-brain axis.

Researchers said the exact dose of HPFs required to trigger an addiction is currently unknown but added the same is true of nicotine.

“This is an important area of future research that may aid in the reformulation of HPFs to reduce addictive potential,” they wrote.

According to the scientists, another area of research that should be explored is the role played by the many food additives that modify the taste, smell, texture or mouth-feel of food.

The additives might not trigger addictive behavior by themselves. Still, the researchers believe that they may contribute to the addictive-eating phenotype when consumed with refined carbohydrates and added fats, similar to what happens with the additives in tobacco products.

“Scientific advances have now identified the ability of tobacco products to trigger strong urges or cravings as another important indicator of addictive potential. Here, we propose that these… criteria provide scientifically valid benchmarks that can be used to evaluate the addictiveness of HPFs,” the researchers wrote.

They concluded that HPFs could meet the criteria to be considered addictive substances if the standard set for tobacco products is considered.

“The addictive potential of HPFs may be a key factor contributing to the high public health costs associated with a food environment dominated by cheap, accessible and heavily marketed HPFs,” the scientists wrote.

Finally, they emphasized how previous research has shown that “poor diets dominated by HPFs are contributing to preventable deaths to a comparable degree as tobacco products.”

The 99 researchers involved in the report concluded that government and private sector reliance on fossil fuels had exacerbated food insecurity, increased the spread of infectious diseases and made heat-related illnesses more prevalent.

The report warned that the costs of climate change inaction on global health would compile those of the Covid-19 pandemic, current armed conflicts and macroeconomic challenges.

The experts found that heatwaves resulted in 98 million more people reporting moderate to medium food insecurity in 2020 compared to the average of the 30-year period ending in 2010.

They said that 29 percent more land area was affected by extreme drought from 2012 to 2021 than in the same period 70 years before, which has increased food and water insecurity, threatened sanitation, exacerbated wildfires and raised the risk of infectious diseases spreading.

The report also found that rising annual average temperatures have elongated the breeding season for mosquitos, increasing the transmission of dengue, yellow fever and the parasite that causes heartworm by more than 10 percent in the past 10 years compared to the same period 70 years ago.

The researchers added that climate change has also expanded the geographic range for these types of diseases as well as food-borne and waterborne diseases.

The report further found that heat-related deaths have increased by two-thirds since 2001. The experts pointed out that extreme heat has a range of health impacts, such as aggravating respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, increasing heat stroke and hurting mental health.

While the report painted a grim picture, the authors finished with an optimistic call to action and said immediate steps to lower emissions would still save millions of lives. However, they warned that this would require a greatly accelerated transition away from fossil fuels.

Meanwhile, a separate report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) released right after the Lancet report highlighted the extent of the challenge presented by fossil fuel extractions.

The WMO found that atmospheric concentrations of the three main greenhouse gases reached record highs in 2021, indicating the burning of fossil fuels continued to increase despite substantial investment in renewable energy over the past decade.

António Guterres, the secretary-general of the United Nations, told the BBC that the global community must re-prioritize climate change despite the distractions created by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the global energy crisis and rampant inflation.

“There has been a tendency to put climate change on the back burner,” he said. “If we are not able to reverse the present trend, we will be doomed.”

“This is the defining issue of our time, nobody has the right to sacrifice international action on climate change for any reason,” Guterres concluded.

• BBC
• BBC

The study, published in Neurology, followed nearly 30,000 people for about 20 years. The researchers’ goal at the outset was to determine whether diet could reduce the risk of developing a range of cognitive disorders.

The study found that following conventional dietary recommendations or a modified Mediterranean diet (where dietary fat comprised olive oil and vegetable oil due to low consumption of the former in Sweden) was not significantly associated with a reduced risk of developing all-cause dementia, Alzheimer’s disease or vascular dementia.

The researchers added that the results were similar when excluding participants who developed dementia within five years and those with diabetes.

“Dementia cases are expected to triple during the next 30 years, highlighting the importance of finding modifiable risk factors for dementia,” the researchers wrote.

The scientists based their results on the dietary habits of more than 28,000 residents in the Swedish city of Malmö who were born between 1923 and 1950 and had participated in the prospective “Swedish population-based Malmö Diet and Cancer Study” between 1991 and 1996, with a follow-up for incident dementia until 2014.

During that period, nearly 7 percent of the participants developed different types of dementia. No specific diet was associated with the presence of Alzheimer’s disease markers in affected patients.

“Dietary habits were assessed with a seven-day food diary, detailed food frequency questionnaire and one-hour interview,” the researchers wrote.

Previous studies have demonstrated the benefit of following the Mediterranean diet on cognition and brain function, especially in older adults.

A 2021 study published in Clinical Nutrition found that participants experienced “small-to-moderate” improvements in several cognitive domains after following the Mediterranean diet for three years compared with a control group. Improvements included spatial, visual and verbal memory improvements and attention span.

In another 2022 study from Harvard University, researchers found that following a green Mediterranean diet low in red meat intake protected the brain from attenuated age-related brain atrophy.

Still, the new Swedish research confirmed findings from two studies conducted by the American Medical Association in 2019, which included thousands of individuals but had found no evidence that diet, including the Mediterranean diet, affects the risk of developing dementia.

Commenting on the Swedish study, Nils Peters, a neurologist at the Klinik Hirslanden in Switzerland, and Benedetta Nacmias, an associate professor of neurology at the University of Florence, Italy, observed that “diet as a singular factor may not have a strong enough effect on cognition, but is more likely to be considered as one factor embedded with various others, the sum of which may influence the course of cognitive function.”

Other factors include regular exercise, smoking, alcohol consumption and stress.

“One challenge for such a long study interval is that dietary habits could not be followed longitudinally over the period to assess potential changes in dietary habits,” Peters told Live Science.

“Thus, the results are challenged by potential confounders, such as changes of dietary habits, lifestyle changes or newly co-occurring medical conditions over time,” he concluded.

• Live Science

The team of Spanish researchers studied how eating food raw compared with boiling, roasting, pan-frying, frying, toasting, sautéing and stewing food affects renal function, inflammation or alters other relevant biomarkers.

Investigating how food preparation influences its nutritional value has become an increasingly common field of study as consumers become more aware of what and how they eat.

“Classical nutritional epidemiology has focused on an approach based on individual foods, examining the role of certain foods or food groups on health,” Montserrat Rodríguez-Ayala and Pilar Guallar-Castillón, researchers at the Autonomous University of Madrid and co-authors of the study, told Olive Oil Times.

“However, cooking methods have hardly been explored using population data,” they added. “Cooking methods have mostly been addressed when studying their effects on physicochemical characteristics of foods or bioavailability of nutrients.”

The cross-sectional study conducted on almost 2,500 Spanish residents over 65 years of age showed trends, such as better health outcomes from eating larger quantities of raw or pan-fried food.

The researchers also stressed the disadvantages of cooking with vegetable oils – though notably not olive oil – at high temperatures.

In their study, researchers found that four different cooking methods – raw, boiling, pan-frying and toasting – corresponded with beneficial effects on several inflammatory markers, as well as improved kidney function, thyroid hormone balances and vitamin D levels.

None of the cooking methods, including frying food, showed significant detrimental associations for the inflammatory and metabolic biomarkers the researchers assessed.

“Our study is a first approach to the effect of cooking methods on health,” Rodríguez-Ayala and Guallar-Castillón said. “Therefore, with the currently available information, recommendations to avoid certain cooking methods cannot be made. However, cooking methods that do not include adding oils heated to high temperatures are safe and can potentially be associated with health benefits.”

Many dietary guidelines suggest that raw and boiled foods provide more health benefits than fried foods, the consumption of which should be limited.

“Our results agree with this recommendation for the consumption of raw and boiled foods,” Rodríguez-Ayala and Guallar-Castillón said. “However, in our population, no harmful effect of fried food consumption was observed, possibly because olive oil is the main source of fat for frying in Spain.”

“Olive oil is considered very stable when heated at high temperatures and is also rich in antioxidants and flavonoids,” they added. “Other added oils or fats have not shown these properties. Therefore, the results could vary in populations using other oils or fats for cooking.”

“In Spain, olive oil consumption might exert a positive influence on health, which could influence to some degree the effect on the healthiness of different cooking methods,” the researchers continued. “The role of olive oil as a cooking fat could be very important, but it has not yet been quantified.”

Additionally, Rodríguez-Ayala and Guallar-Castillón noted that the study, comprised of 53 percent female volunteers and an average age of 71, was not representative of the Spanish population.

They suggested people in this demographic might eat healthier food compared to younger generations, which could suggest different results even when cooking methods are considered.

“So far, no similar study has been conducted in younger populations, and it is to be expected that the results could vary to some degree,” Rodríguez-Ayala and Guallar-Castillón said. “Diet quality is lower among younger people because adherence to the Mediterranean dietary pattern has decreased among younger people and also because the consumption of ultra-processed foods has increased.”

“Therefore, we start from a more disadvantaged metabolic situation,” they added. “However, we believe that the general rule of avoiding cooking methods with added oils at high temperatures would also be beneficial for younger people.”

The same researchers were also involved in a separate study that found olive oil consumption to be associated with lower risks of cardiovascular disease and stroke. The higher the quality of the olive oil, the better the outcome.

“Our research group has shown that olive oil consumption did not increase coronary risk nor the risk of stroke, despite being an energy-rich food,” Rodríguez-Ayala and Guallar-Castillón said. “Recently, we have also shown that virgin olive oil consumption was associated with less atherosclerosis in carotid arteries and femoral arteries as well as a decrease in coronary calcium.”

The researchers added that further longitudinal and long-term studies must be done to expand the current knowledge about cooking methods and establish more robust associations.

They explained that those methods should be explored for the role they can play in different populations, such as non-Mediterranean, and different age groups.

“Our results are a first step in the process of establishing the role of cooking methods on health,” Rodríguez-Ayala and Guallar-Castillón said. “However, more basic and population-based research is needed before establishing final conclusions.”

“Undoubtedly, knowing what cooking methods could be included as healthy eating habits is an essential part of the prevention and management of chronic conditions that are related to diet,” they concluded. “A new field of dietary prevention has been opened up.”

The researchers conducted a wide-ranging review of the current scientific literature. They found that following the Mediterranean diet could yield many benefits for obese people and people at risk of obesity.

The authors of the meta-study, published in Current Obesity Reports, noted that hypertension, type 2 diabetes mellitus, several types of cancers or dyslipidemia, a lipid imbalance that often precedes cardiovascular conditions, are among the many diseases frequently diagnosed in obese people.

By reviewing the current scientific literature, the authors found that adopting the Mediterranean diet might reduce oxidative stress, inflammation, thrombosis and endothelial dysfunction.

Following the diet was also linked with weight loss, modulating the gut microbiome and improving lipid profile, immunity and insulin sensitivity.

By limiting inflammation and regulating cholesterol, the Mediterannenean diet was also proven to be a practical step in cancer prevention and reducing cardiovascular disease risks.

According to the World Health Organization, 650 million adults were obese in 2016. Obesity-related diseases are estimated to kill more people than those associated with being underweight in most countries. In addition, WHO data show that 39 million children under the age of five are overweight or obese, double the amount deemed obese in 1980.

The researchers described the Mediterranean diet as characterized by a “high consumption of vegetables, fruit, nuts, cereals, whole grains and extra virgin olive oil, as well as a moderate consumption of fish and poultry and a limited intake of sweets, red meat and dairy products.”

In the meta-study, the researchers analyzed the proven effects of following the Mediterranean diet on the most common obesity-related conditions.

They found that the Mediterranean diet is not associated with weight gain, even with no energy restrictions. A high-fat, unrestricted-calorie Mediterranean diet also was associated with little weight change and less central adiposity compared with a low-fat diet in the long term.

“The Mediterranean diet has the potential to reduce abdominal adiposity, in particular metabolically detrimental visceral fat, independently of weight loss, and can be recommended as a healthy diet choice to individuals with obesity and overweight, particularly at risk of cardiovascular and metabolic disease,” the researchers wrote.

“The Mediterranean diet may be more effective in Southern European populations due to better availability of specific food products, cultural and other factors,” they added.

Another critical health factor of the Mediterranean diet is the composition of its polyphenols.

According to the researchers, “the plant-based components of the Mediterranean diet contain polyphenols that have been shown to reduce insulin resistance and improve cardio-metabolic risk factors.”

“In addition, olive oil and low-to-moderate alcohol intake (especially red wine) also contribute to the benefits of the Mediterranean diet via their polyphenol content,” they added.

The results of the meta-study are likely to be heralded as good news in the fight against the global obesity pandemic. Obesity is associated with a high risk of morbidity and mortality from different non-communicable diseases.

“Of interest, the negative effects of obesity are reversed in part with substantial weight loss,” the researchers wrote. “The composition of the Mediterranean diet has been related to an excellent effect on reducing dyslipidemia.”

“Additionally, [the diet] positively modulates the gut microbiota and immune system, significantly decreasing inflammation mediators, common ground for many obesity-related disorders,” they concluded. “The Mediterranean diet is the healthiest dietary pattern available to prevent several non-communicable diseases, including cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes.”

• World Health Organization

Visceral obesity is a triggering factor for multiple pathologic conditions such as cardiovascular disease and metabolic syndrome. It is also associated with developing prostate, breast and colorectal tumors.

The traditional Mediterranean diet is a known source of polyphenols, which the researchers believe might impact adiposity.

The study, published in BMC Medicine, explored the impacts of what they defined as a “green-Med diet, twice fortified in dietary polyphenols and lower in red and processed meat.” The diet “may be a potent intervention to promote visceral adiposity regression,” the researchers wrote.

Over 18 months, the researchers followed 294 subjects with an average body mass index of 31.2 and an age of 51. Eighty-eight percent of them were men.

The subjects were divided into three groups. The first followed the healthy dietary guidelines, the second adhered to a traditional Mediterranean diet, and the third followed a green-MedDiet. All three groups were equally calorie-restricted.

The subjects were also asked to exercise and consume 28 grams of walnuts daily, adding 440 milligrams of polyphenols to their diets.

The green-Med group was also asked to consume three to four cups of green tea daily, and a 100-gram Wolffia globosa shake.

“The green protein shake was partially substituted for dinner, replacing beef or poultry protein source,” the researchers wrote. Wolffia globosa is an aquatic plant high in protein, fiber and fat.

During the observational period, the researchers used magnetic resonance imaging to measure the abdominal adipose tissues, which demonstrated that visceral adiposity tissue was reduced by 4.2 percent in the healthy dietary guidelines group, 6 percent in the MedDiet group and 14 percent in the group following the green-MedDiet.

Weight loss and waist circumference decreased by 4.7 percent in the MedDiet group and 5.7 percent in the green-Med group.

According to the researchers, higher green tea, walnut, and Wolffia globosa consumption paired with lower red meat intake resulted in higher total plasma polyphenols and elevated urine polyphenols. These were significantly associated with a more significant loss of visceral adipose tissue.

Researchers explained that the Mediterranean diet is a reference point for the study as it includes plenty of foods rich in polyphenols. The eating pattern has been shown to reduce visceral adiposity regardless of weight loss when associated with physical activity.

In the MedDiet, polyphenols come from extra virgin olive oil, vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts, red wine and whole-grain cereals. Current research shows that extra virgin olive oil comprises at least two dozen polyphenols, the health benefits of which continue to be researched.

To date, following the MedDiet has been shown to reduce inflammation and oxidative stress, enhance endothelial function, increase plasma concentrations of the beneficial adiponectin hormone and curtail the atherogenic lipoproteins, which are linked to cardiovascular disease.

• BJR
• Nutrients