“Mediterranean diet” benefits partly due to oil: study
April 19, 2010
Courtesy of BioMed Central
and World Science staff
Courtesy of BioMed Central
and World Science staff
In gre di ents of ol ive oil that sup press in flammation in the body are partly re spon si ble for the healthy effects of “Mediter ranean di ets,” sci en tists say in a new re port.
A Med i ter ra nean di et is gen er ally con sid ered to be one with plen ty of fruits, veg etables, legumes, ce reals, some fish and al co hol, and lit tle dairy and meat. Ol ives and olive oil are al so typ i cal fea tures of Med i ter ra nean di ets. Such reg i mens have been linked to a death ra te re duced by half in 70- to 90-year-olds, and ben e fits such as low er risk of car di o vas cu lar dis ease and Alzheimer’s dis ease.
Part of the ex plana t ion for such effects lies in a family of weakly acid ic, or gan ic chem ical com pounds called phe nols, found in ol ive oil, ac cord ing to Francisco Perez-Jimenez from the University of Cordoba, Spain, lead re searcher in the new study.
Phe nols have ef fects on genes in volved in in flamma t ion, he added, a pro cess in which blood flow to spe cif ic parts of the body in creases as part of an im mune res ponse. Inflamma t ion can be come an ab nor mal, chron ic con di tion in a num ber of dis eases, includ ing heart dis ease and ar thri tis.
The phe nols in vir gin ol ive oil sup press sev er al genes that pro mote in flamma t ion, said Perez-Jimenez. Vir gin ol ive oil is oil squeezed out of ol ives at rel a tively low tem per atures in a pro cess known as cold press ing. Vir gin and par tic u larly “extra-vir gin” ol ive oil, which comes from the first press ing of the ol ives, have the high est phe nol con tent, said Perez-Jimenez.
Perez-Jimenez and col leagues stud ied the ef fects of eat ing a break fast rich in phe nol com pounds on gene ac ti vity in 20 pa tients with met a bol ic syn drome, a com mon con dition as so ci at ed with in creased risk of car di o vas cu lar dis ease and type 2 di a be tes.
The study par ti ci pants ate con trolled break fasts, and for six weeks be fore the study they had to avoid all drugs, vit a min tablets and oth er sup ple ments. “We iden ti fied 98 dif fer en tially ex pressed [ac tiva ted] genes when com par ing the in take of phe nol-rich olive oil with low-phe nol ol ive oil,” said Perez-Jimenez.
“Sev eral of the re pressed genes are known to be in volved in pro-in flam ma to ry processes,” he added. That sug gests the di et can switch the ac ti vity of im mune sys tem cells to a less harm ful “in flam ma to ry pro file,” he added.
“These find ings strength en the rela t ion ship be tween in flammation, obes ity and di et and pro vide ev i dence at the most bas ic lev el of healthy ef fects de rived from vir gin olive oil con sump tion in hu mans. It will be in ter est ing to evalua te wheth er par tic u lar phe nolic com pounds car ry these ef fects, or if they are the con se quence of a syn er gic effect” of the en tire group of phenol compounds, he said.
The study is pub lished in the re search jour nal BMC Ge nomics.
A Med i ter ra nean di et is gen er ally con sid ered to be one with plen ty of fruits, veg etables, legumes, ce reals, some fish and al co hol, and lit tle dairy and meat. Ol ives and olive oil are al so typ i cal fea tures of Med i ter ra nean di ets. Such reg i mens have been linked to a death ra te re duced by half in 70- to 90-year-olds, and ben e fits such as low er risk of car di o vas cu lar dis ease and Alzheimer’s dis ease.
Part of the ex plana t ion for such effects lies in a family of weakly acid ic, or gan ic chem ical com pounds called phe nols, found in ol ive oil, ac cord ing to Francisco Perez-Jimenez from the University of Cordoba, Spain, lead re searcher in the new study.
Phe nols have ef fects on genes in volved in in flamma t ion, he added, a pro cess in which blood flow to spe cif ic parts of the body in creases as part of an im mune res ponse. Inflamma t ion can be come an ab nor mal, chron ic con di tion in a num ber of dis eases, includ ing heart dis ease and ar thri tis.
The phe nols in vir gin ol ive oil sup press sev er al genes that pro mote in flamma t ion, said Perez-Jimenez. Vir gin ol ive oil is oil squeezed out of ol ives at rel a tively low tem per atures in a pro cess known as cold press ing. Vir gin and par tic u larly “extra-vir gin” ol ive oil, which comes from the first press ing of the ol ives, have the high est phe nol con tent, said Perez-Jimenez.
Perez-Jimenez and col leagues stud ied the ef fects of eat ing a break fast rich in phe nol com pounds on gene ac ti vity in 20 pa tients with met a bol ic syn drome, a com mon con dition as so ci at ed with in creased risk of car di o vas cu lar dis ease and type 2 di a be tes.
The study par ti ci pants ate con trolled break fasts, and for six weeks be fore the study they had to avoid all drugs, vit a min tablets and oth er sup ple ments. “We iden ti fied 98 dif fer en tially ex pressed [ac tiva ted] genes when com par ing the in take of phe nol-rich olive oil with low-phe nol ol ive oil,” said Perez-Jimenez.
“Sev eral of the re pressed genes are known to be in volved in pro-in flam ma to ry processes,” he added. That sug gests the di et can switch the ac ti vity of im mune sys tem cells to a less harm ful “in flam ma to ry pro file,” he added.
“These find ings strength en the rela t ion ship be tween in flammation, obes ity and di et and pro vide ev i dence at the most bas ic lev el of healthy ef fects de rived from vir gin olive oil con sump tion in hu mans. It will be in ter est ing to evalua te wheth er par tic u lar phe nolic com pounds car ry these ef fects, or if they are the con se quence of a syn er gic effect” of the en tire group of phenol compounds, he said.
The study is pub lished in the re search jour nal BMC Ge nomics.
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