By Angela Bell
Olive Oil Times Contributor | Reporting from Clemson, SC  17 November 2012

It is fairly common knowledge these days that olive oil has certain health benefits and that using olive oil in vinaigrettes, emulsions and baked goods, drizzled on or dipped into, adds an extra layer of flavor and moisture when needed as well. But it is lesser known that olive oil presents an opportunity to gain the same benefits from stove top cooking, in high temperature methods such as frying and sautéing.

I know what you are thinking, frying and healthy? No such thing! But the truth is that by using extra virgin olive oil you can have both.  Continue reading to learn more about the benefits of cooking with olive oil.

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By Elena Paravantes, RD
Olive Oil Times Contributor | Reporting from Athens  Posted 15 September 2011

Nutrition experts at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) in conjunction with colleagues at Harvard Health Publications have unveiled the Healthy Eating Plate, a visual guide that provides a blueprint for eating a healthy meal.

According to a press release from the school, this new visual nutrition guide addresses important deficiencies in the MyPlate icon, the visual guide released by the USDA this summer.

One of the shortcomings of the MyPlate according to Harvard researchers, is that it is silent on beneficial fats. In other words, it does not distinguish between good and bad fats.

The Healthy Eating Plate on the other hand depicts a bottle of healthy oil, and encourages consumers to use olive oil, canola, and other plant oils in cooking, on salads, and at the table.

The Harvard guide also recommends limiting butter and avoiding trans fats. This is an important distinction as many consumers tend to group all fats in one category, and are not aware that some fats, such as olive oil, are actually good for you.

Scientists believe they’ve identified the compound that fights off cardiovascular damage

Margaret Raber
Posted: June 22, 2011

Since the coining of the term “French Paradox” in 1992, researchers have been examining various aspects of the so-called “Mediterranean diet” to discover why the people of southern Europe live longer, with fewer cases of heart disease, than Americans and Northern Europeans. A new study from Yale University School of Medicine has identified oleuropein, a component in olive oil, as a possible factor.

During the study, recently published in the journal European Society for Vascular Surgery, Yale researchers tested the effects of oleuropein, a polyphenol in olive oil, on smooth muscle cells (SMC), which make up the muscles in blood vessels that regulate blood pressure. The scientists harvested SMC from cows and allowed the cells to grow in the lab, regulating their development and adding doses of oleuropein.

Normally, vascular SMC controls blood flow by increasing blood pressure as the muscle contracts and decreasing it as the muscle relaxes. When SMC is damaged by high LDL cholesterols (the “bad” kind of cholesterol found in gooey brie, for example) the body sends a team of white blood cells to fight off the inflammation. But white blood cells end up causing even more damage by mixing with oxidized LDL and forming “foam cells.” SMC proliferates to try to heal itself. The new SMC cells combine with the foam cells to form plaques on artery walls. Over time, that process leads to atherosclerosis, high blood pressure and heart disease. Continue reading →

Please find below the University of California – Davis published Olive Oil Report which discusses the chemical analysis of several random store -bought imported extra virgin olive oils.  Nearly 2/3 of the random samples tested failed IOC/USDA standards for extra virgin olive oil.  Is your store-bought/branded extra virgin olive oil on this list?

UC-Davis Olive Oil Report

The Myriad of Health Benefits Associated with Consuming Extra Virgin Olive Oil – This New Huffington Post Article Nicely Sums it Up

Could a traditional food have pain- and inflammation-reducing effects similar to over the counter pain medicine like ibuprofen?

Scientists from Italy, Spain, the U.S. and Australia have discovered that extra virgin olive oil can provide significant health benefits, including the ability to help reduce pain and inflammation.
This robust, flavorful oil is an example of the food as medicine concept, that foods can have a powerful impact on health.

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The following article is from www.naturalproductsinsider.com

BARCELONA, Spain—Olive oil polyphenols promote the growth of antibodies that help reduce oxidative low-density lipoprotein (LDL), which could help reduce hardening of the arteries, according to a recently published study from the EUROLIVE Study Group (Clin Nutr. 2011 Mar 2. DOI:10.1016/j.clnu.2011.01.013). What’s more, the researchers found olive oil polyphenols encourage the antibodies to grow even more in subjects who experience higher lipid oxidative damage.  Researchers,  who span Europe from Spain, Denmark and Finland to Germany and Italy, assigned 200 healthy men to three-week sequences of 25 ml/day of three olive oils with high (366 mg/kg), medium (164 mg/kg) and low (2.7 mg/kg) phenolic content in a crossover, controlled trial.  They studied the plasma concentration of oxidized LDL auto antibodies (OLAB), which have shown in previous studies to protect against atherosclerosis.  Olive oil phenolic content increased OLAB generation, with the effect being stronger at higher concentrations of oxidized LDL (P=0.020 for interaction).  A direct relationship was observed between OLAB and the total olive oil phenol content in LDL (R=0.209; P=0.014).  OLAB concentrations, adjusted for oxidized LDL, increased directly in a dose-dependent manner with the polyphenol content of the olive oil administered (P=0.023).  Plasma OLAB concentration was inversely associated with oxidized LDL (P<0.001). Continue reading →

Please find a great article below which draws a parallel between the properties of good quality extra virgin olive oil high in polyphenols and Ibuprofen.  

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2011/01/19/133050281/how-olive-oil-and-ibuprofen-can-make-you-want-to-cough?sc=emaf

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – It’s no secret that eating well is good for both body and mind, so it may not come as a surprise that a new study finds women who eat more olive oil and leafy vegetables such as salads and cooked spinach are significantly less likely to develop heart disease.
A group of Italian researchers found that women who ate at least 1 serving of leafy vegetables per day were more than 40 percent less likely to develop heart disease over an average of eight years, relative to women who ate two or fewer portions of those vegetables each week.
Women who downed at least 3 tablespoons of olive oil daily – such as in salad dressing – were also 40 percent less likely to be diagnosed with heart disease, compared to women who ate the least olive oil.
It’s not exactly clear why specifically leafy vegetables and olive oil may protect the heart, study author Dr. Domenico Palli of the Cancer Research and Prevention Institute in Florence told Reuters Health. “Probably the mechanisms responsible for the protective effect of plant-origin foods on cardiovascular diseases involve micronutrients such as folate, antioxidant vitamins and potassium, all present in green leafy vegetables.” Continue reading →