Including olive oil in your daily diet changes your life. Now it’s proven
This year’s flagship meeting of the American Society for Nutrition, held July 22-25 in Boston, dished up top research that returns to Italy its supremacy in the quality of life: Regular consumption of olive oil (it is not even specified that it is extra virgin) is associated with a 28% lower risk of fatal dementia. He says it a mega US survey of 90,000 Americans in which postdoctoral researcher at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health Anne-Julie Tessier studied death records for three decades: 4,749 study participants died of dementia.
The study analyzes the relationship between diet and dementia-related death and brings out the beneficial effects of olive oil. Those who consumed more than half a tablespoon a day had a 28% lower risk of dying from dementia than those who never or rarely consumed. The relevant effect is on almost a third of the population. The picture even improves if you replace just one teaspoon of margarine and mayonnaise with the equivalent amount of olive oil per day: the risk of death from dementia in that case becomes 8-14% lower. The scientists also found that the association with olive oil and lower risk of death from dementia persists regardless of diet quality.
In essence, consuming olive oil instead of processed or animal fats allows for a very beneficial effect on the brain and to have a healthier diet with therefore general beneficial effects.
“Certain antioxidant compounds in olive oil can cross the blood-brain barrier, potentially having a direct effect on the brain,” Tessier told trade journals, “it is also possible that olive oil has an indirect effect on brain health that benefits cardiovascular health.”
It is known that extra virgin olive oil, in whose quality production Italy excels in the world, promotes neurogenesis, also contains vitamin E and polyphenols which perform a powerful antioxidant activity. Other previous research had shown that extra virgin olive oil from the Mediterranean diet reduced biomarkers of Alzheimer’s. Studies prior to this current one had also shown that extra virgin olive oil regenerates human cells and reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease. Italian extra virgin olive oil is a worldwide excellence, thanks to the benevolent climate of the peninsula, the innumerable varieties present in the country and the accurate Italian processing systems.
It is obvious that in these researches they should never be understood as a cause-effect relationship but Tessier also explained that a further randomized study would be needed to determine the optimal amount of oil olive oil to be consumed in order to reap the aforementioned benefits.
The 90,000 study is the only industry-wide one looking at the relationship between diet and dementia-related death at this time. A problem, dementia, truly devastating for those affected, their loved ones and families, also in terms of commitment, resources and assistance. It is estimated that in the United States about 5.6 million people over the age of 65 suffer from dementia and Alzheimer’s, in Italy over one million people44 million worldwide.
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