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Olive oil? Healthy or not?!


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11 hours ago, Mike41 said:

. . . the Papua Highlands of New Guinea,[4] rural China,[5] Central Africa,[6] or with the Tarahumara Indians of Northern Mexico,[7] you better plan on a different profession because these countries do not have cardiovascular disease.

Mike,

Do you happen to know the most common cause of death of these folks -- and how old an age they generally live to?

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On 9/20/2020 at 10:46 AM, TomBAvoider said:

Ron, I think you should take a careful look at your olive leaf powder. Chances are extraordinarily high - a virtual certainty - that you are not getting what you think you are getting in any olive leaf powder you purchase anywhere.

This is a fair point. I was thinking I should plant my own olive tree 🙂

But on the other hand, I eat about 2-3 grams of supposedly organic olive leaves powder a few times a week, and since it appears to be considerably denser in beneficial stuff like oleuropein than olive oil (EVOO too), I figure it still provides some of the benefits, without the fat.

As to Todd's question above, it is a valid one, but the best-studied diet is that of the 1950s Okinawans, who were also the longest living population within Japan and in the world.  They consumed no olive oil at all and their diet consisted of less than 10% fat.  No red wine either.

My own fat intake is far above 10%, mainly from nuts and flax, and some from cacao nibs.

It's worth noting that the Sardinians, especially those in the "Blue Zone," consumed very little olive oil and almost no fish until the 1950s.

Both the Okinawans and the Sardinians ate very little meat and animal products (a little goat cheese for the Sardinians).

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10 hours ago, Ron Put said:

It's worth noting that the Sardinians, especially those in the "Blue Zone," consumed very little olive oil and almost no fish until the 1950s.

Ron, that population from Ogliastra, the remote interior of Sardinia, is traditionaly made up of sheep and goat farmers. I would bet a conspicuous sum that they ate significant amounts of fat-rich, 'grass-fed' cheese.

Pecorino cheese from Sardinia is an old tradition and is still renowned in Italy. 

My personal opinion of the blue zones is that they are genetic islands where pools of genetic variations favorable to longevity have concentrated. On top of that, a healthy lifestyle probably facilitates theexpression of protective genes. But I'm pretty sure that situations like the Melis family, the most longeve one in the world where in 2015 eight brothers reached a sum of 745 is not just due to their renowned soup or 'minestrone'.

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On 9/24/2020 at 2:47 AM, mccoy said:

Ron, that population from Ogliastra, the remote interior of Sardinia, is traditionaly made up of sheep and goat farmers. I would bet a conspicuous sum that they ate significant amounts of fat-rich, 'grass-fed' cheese.

Pecorino cheese from Sardinia is an old tradition and is still renowned in Italy. 

Times change.  I remember reading a study specifically on Sardinia and diet, and that olive oil and meat consumption was minimal until WWII. I can't find that specific study, but olive oil consumption has dramatically increased in Italy, Spain and Greece over the last few decades.

This might be of interest:

Male longevity in Sardinia, a review of historical sources supporting a causal link with dietary factors

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Ron, the article is a very good one. If I understood the graph correctly, in Sardinia the consumption of EVOO was almost nihil, but that's not a region known for its olive crops. On the other way, the shepherds in the interior (mountains), where the blue zone is, ate products derived from sheep cheese, which is pretty fat. Sheep ricotta is extremely fat, about 33% in mass. From the same article:

Quote

The consumption of dairy products, both from goats and sheep, was higher in the mountains;20 however, rather than mature cheese, mostly intended for sale, people made extensive use of ricotta (whey cheese, dried curd) and a sort of fresh sour cheese called casu ajedu, which was rich in Lactobacilli.

Also, the table in the same article highlights that the diet was hypercaloric and hyperproteic, with 87% saturated fats, 54 grams per day (please note, Sardinias before the WW2 were of small stature, probably averaging no more than 5'3" or 160 cm, or less). The macros are not what we would relate to a longevity diet. very high glucose and leucine signals. So, my belief that the main longevity factor there was the genetic variations, not the diet, although it was plant-based, with lots of wild herbs and nuts. They also led a pretty active life. No fish at all. Meat 2-4 times per month. The shepherds were the Blue Zone inhabitants. Again, diet and lifestyle were good, but not exceptionally good.

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Maybe I'm going to build up a cronometer day for the Sardinian shepherd and see what it looks like.

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mccoy, I also assume that genetics play a large part.  However, diet and lifestyle are also important.

The way I read the charts, the shepherd population consumed about 26-27g of cheese per day, which is less than 50% of the average cheese consumption in the Mediterranean countries.  Moreover, it is ricotta cheese, which may have 33% fat, but it's still much lower in fat than most hard cheeses consumed in the rest of the Mediterranian.  Pecorino is about 67% fat.

The shepherds' meat consumption is also minimal and even butter consumption is below the average Mediterranean resident.

It appears that that ate a lot more cereals and nuts than average drank more wine than average(about a glass a day, it seems), and about an average amount of pulses.

But, no, no olive oil and no donuts for them 🙂

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10 hours ago, Ron Put said:

Pecorino is about 67% fat.

Italian Pecorino is about 30% fat, measured on the undried mass. 67% is probably fat measured on dried (dehydrated) mass.

I'm not sure about the cheese consumption which may be guessed by the charts. About 45 grams of animal fats eaten by shepherds is compatible with 45*3 = 135 gr sheep milk ricotta (assuming 33% fat content), which is not much but sure higher than 25 grams daily . I would be very surprised if a shepherd didn't eat regularly fresh cheese, and it is reasonable that they ate ricotta, which is a poor derivate of whey, which could not be sold (and the after-ricotta wheyish water went to the dogs). 135 grams daily is not too much. As a young vegetarian, I used to eat one pound of ricotta at a time. One day I bought freshly made ricotta from the shepherds, it was 6 pounds, I ate all of it in one meal (but I was 16).

All other considerations are true, lifestyle, eating organically grown plants, wild plants, exercise, but these are characteristics of all rural areas of pre-war Italy. Peasants ate even less cheese, if they did not have their animals. Pulses, cereals, vegetables, were the base of daily diet. With EVOO in central-southern Italy, but not on the mountains. 

Again, what seems to differentiate the Sardinian blue zones from other rural populations of Italy is their well-conserved, protective genetic pool. It was extremely well conserved because the Sardinina blue zone was an extremely isolated area, probably some inbreeding occurred.

 

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16 hours ago, mccoy said:

talian Pecorino is about 30% fat, measured on the undried mass. 67% is probably fat measured on dried (dehydrated) mass.

I'm not sure about the cheese consumption which may be guessed by the charts.

I am guessing the consumption based on where it falls within the circles within the chart - specifically the 50% circle, and the correlating value of the amount in grams which makes up the 100% DAFNE value.  Even the shepherds appear to have relatively low consumption of cheese, whatever kind it may have been.

As to Pecorino Romano, I see values between 40% and 65% of fat.  I tried to find more reliable information and this popped up, but it's in Italian, so you are better equipped to tell 🙂

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/292151525_Previsione_della_resa_in_formaggio_Pecorino_Romano_e_Pecorino_Sardo_in_funzione_del_contenuto_in_proteine_e_grasso_del_latte_di_pecora

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Ron, the official Italian database on nutritional values is the CREA. I can report here the values provided for 3 types of pecorino (values rounded )

Pecorino = 32% fat

Pecorino romano = 33% fat

Pecorino siciliano = 34% fat

My bottom line, which is confirmed by the historical reconstruction of the article you cited, is that, to the modern recognized standards (for example, Longo, Fontana, lowfat vegan), the diet of the German shepherds was not a longevity diet. No CR, hyperproteic, lots of animal protein, good amount of animal fats. Yet there were wide pools of centenarians. Why? Mainly because the random expression of a genetic protective setup has been well conserved in a very isolated area.

Otherwise, we should all start eating grass-fed ricotta cheese from sheep or goat, sheep milk, vegetables and legumes minestrone, sheep meat at least twice a month, lots of whole cereals, abundant calories, have a BMI of 23.5 kgm-3 and walk around in steep slopes with many pauses to meditate.

The phenotype of Sardininan shepherds in Ogliastra was definitely not the phenotype of people practicing CR.

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According to the survey of Peretti in 1938, the pastoral population showed a higher (>20%) consumption of animal protein.11 Although animal-derived foods were a forced choice for Sardinian shepherds in the pre-NT era, owing to the constraints inherent to transhumant shepherding, it nearly always implied a higher consumption of dairy products rather than meat and meat products, the intake of which was below the average of other Mediterranean countries10, 21 (Figure 1). Despite the large intake of dairy products, the energy from fats was quite low, both among shepherds and peasants (19 and 14%, respectively). The superior quality of nutrients among shepherds compared with peasants may have had an impact on the overall LBZ population health, and it is likely to reflect the difference in body parameters observed historically between the two groups (Table 4). Indeed, body height among male shepherds was more than 3 cm higher than among peasants, whereas body weight was 7 kg heavier in favor of shepherds.11 The data show that already in the 1930s shepherds in the mountainous area clearly exhibited indicators of a more nutritious diet, such as muscle mass and amount of adipose tissue, compared with peasants living in the plains. However, in the normal range, the body mass index was higher in shepherds (23.5 kg/m2) than in peasants (21.5 kg/m2). This is not in contrast with recent studies suggesting that shorter people live longer.31, 32 

 

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There is an editorial in the International Journal of Disease Reversal and Prevention about oils in general, Is OilHealthy?

In 1898, William Osler gave a presentation about angina pectoris. His statement on the rarity of this disorder in 1898 is poignant considering the frequency with which cardiovascular illness is encountered today

after the end of World War I and into the early 1920s, the identification of cardiovascular disease accelerated and coincided with the increased availability of monounsaturated and polyunsaturated oils.

Investigator    Subject                        Oil                                           Result

Vogel               Human            Olive oil                                   Decreased flow-mediated dilatation

Rueda-Clausen Human            Olive, soybean, palm oil          All oils created 31% endothelial impairment and increased triglycerides

DeLorgeril       Human            Mediterranean diet with oil      25% major cardiac events at 4 years

In summary converging lines of evidence indicate consumption of processed oils

whether monounsaturated, polyunsaturated, or saturated contribute to endothelial dysfunction and atherosclerosis. To my knowledge there is no study with oils that has successfully reversed coronary artery disease. studies that purport the benefits of oil indicate merely a slowing of disease progression but not halting or reversing disease.

[The Predimed study] at five years of follow-up, all three diet groups had sustained scores of major cardiac events of heart attack, stroke, or death. specifically, these events occurred in 96 participants in the olive oil group, 83 in the nut group, and 109 in the low-fat group. a more accurate title of the study would be “The Creation of Cardiovascular Disease with the Mediterranean Diet”

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  • 4 weeks later...

Allow me to revive this thread and ask one simple question. Why, instead of arguing about whether olive oil is processed junk or a life extending medicine, don't we just consume whole olives? There seem to be no issues with them, except for the fact that they are usually soaked in brine, which is an issue I've been able to circumvent within 5 seconds by googling "olives without salt" and clicking on the first link.

Edited by Lucius
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On 9/28/2020 at 2:59 PM, corybroo said:

The Predimed study] at five years of follow-up, all three diet groups had sustained scores of major cardiac events of heart attack, stroke, or death. specifically, these events occurred in 96 participants in the olive oil group, 83 in the nut group, and 109 in the low-fat group. a more accurate title of the study would be “The Creation of Cardiovascular Disease with the Mediterranean Diet”

It’s important to point out there was NO LOW FAT GROUP, PERIOD! Unless you consider 39% of calories from fat a low fat diet.

As for whole olives, absolutely of course

Edited by Mike41
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18 hours ago, Lucius said:

Allow me to revive this thread and ask one simple question. Why, instead of arguing about whether olive oil is processed junk or a life extending medicine, don't we just consume whole olives? There seem to be no issues with them, except for the fact that they are usually soaked in brine, which is an issue I've been able to circumvent within 5 seconds by googling "olives without salt" and clicking on the first link.

I'm not  sure it's so simple. When olives are picked unripe, they are usually cured in a NaOH solution, which may destroy some of the beneficial secoiridoids. When they are picked riper, as probably in the case of kalamata greek olives, and then boiled or cooked, they have less secoiridoids to begin with and thermal processing almost assuredly will destroy a significant amount of what's left. It depends on variety, time of picking, processing.

Unless the olives have been tested for polyphenols, it's hard to say, you might do specific research on the secoiridoids content of processed olives and see what comes up.

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5 hours ago, mccoy said:

I'm not  sure it's so simple. When olives are picked unripe, they are usually cured in a NaOH solution, which may destroy some of the beneficial secoiridoids. When they are picked riper, as probably in the case of kalamata greek olives, and then boiled or cooked, they have less secoiridoids to begin with and thermal processing almost assuredly will destroy a significant amount of what's left. It depends on variety, time of picking, processing.

Unless the olives have been tested for polyphenols, it's hard to say, you might do specific research on the secoiridoids content of processed olives and see what comes up.

I've done some research like you suggested and found this study from 2014 https://www.longdom.org/open-access/understanding-the-characteristics-of-oleuropein-for-table-olive-processing-2157-7110.1000328.pdf

The most interesting part was this:

"The fundamental and most important step of table olive processing is debittering. During debittering processes, the levels of oleuropein are markedly reduced either by leaching or hydrolysis, hence the olive is debittered [6,20]. Keeping in brine and treatment with NaOH are used two main methods in table olive industry. However, these two methods have disadvantages. These disadvantages of brine debittering need a long time (6-8 months) and the final product has high salt content (%5-7). The disadvantages of debittering by NaOH are degradation of other phenolic compounds with oleuropein, nutrient losses caused by washing for removing the excess NaOH from olive and the formation of high amounts of waste water. For this reason, there is a need to develop new debittering methods to produce table olive. New technologies are needed in order to reduce the length of the debittering process and to reduce or complete replace the use of NaOH and the subsequent neutralizing washes or brine debittering processes. As oleuropein is water-soluble, it is extracted from the raw flesh by diffusion when olives are soaked in water or brine during processing. Slitting, cracking or bruising the olives facilitates extraction of oleuropein. However, important to processing, oleuropein is degraded by lye but not in the acid environments created by fermentation"

So it seems that there would be a huge difference between eating whole (processed) olives and drinking EVOO, which retains its oleuropein content. I guess the healthiest thing to do should then be to eat whole bitter unprocessed olives 🙂 Which unfortunately most people aren't going to do, because they taste so disgusting, but if they want to make sure that they are eating an absolutely healthy food that hasn't been processed and retained all of its goodness, bitter olives are the way to go.

Edited by Lucius
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  • 1 month later...

It seems this thread could use some context. Specifically, let's put this in context of the question: "How can I eat and sustain a calorically restricted diet while maintaining optimal nutrition?". EVOO is almost completely empty calories, period. According to the USDA's database queried by our lord and savior Cron-o-meter 1tbsp (120kcal) of EVOO contains a negligible amount of virtually every nutrient and mineral, with the exception of Iron (a whopping 1% of male adult RDI), Vitamin K (7%) and Vitamin E (14%), for the mere cost of about 15% of your daily calories. In other words, by consuming EVOO, you are incurring a rather massive opportunity cost in other ways you could have spent those calories. In food context, this translates into a large bowl of fruit (about 200g of the stuff). So the question should not be "Is EVOO healthy?" but "is EVOO the best use of the limited calories I have to spend?". Even though EVOO is nutritionally impotent, in principle it's also possible it contains some compound that could dramatically improve human health. Even if this was the case, however, the effect would have to be fairly large to justify the opportunity cost.

As for the Science, let's take a relatively recent moderately-powered meta analysis (3000 subjects), studying EVOO on CVD risk factors [1]. They found a moderate decrease in CRP levels (0.6mg/L) for those consuming EVOO compared to the control group. However, the "control groups" consisted of people eating animal fat and other forms of fat - not those abstaining from those foods. This is also studying EVOO on the underlying risk factors, not on the incidence of heart disease, or fatal coronary events. It's also just one cause of death. You might reasonably ask is there something else that can give a similar effect that actually had nutrients? I'm glad you asked! Looks like berries [2] are such a food - in a similarly powered meta-analysis of RCTs we also get some decrease in various biomarkers of CVD. And with the same number of calories (~120), not only do you get to consume much more volume of food (200g), but you also get some nutrition too! (131% of vitamin C, 3% calcium, 11% copper, 34% manganese, 7% magnesium, etc. etc.).

EVOO advocates not only need to clear the barrier of no harm (which they have only done in comparison to some other sources of fat), but also need to demonstrate that EVOO is better than other ways of spending your limited and precious calories. This is an extremely high bar to clear, and at least in my opinion it hasn't been cleared.

[1] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10408398.2018.1470491

[2] https://www.nature.com/articles/srep23625

 

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1 hour ago, edmundsj said:

EVOO advocates not only need to clear the barrier of no harm (which they have only done in comparison to some other sources of fat), but also need to demonstrate that EVOO is better than other ways of spending your limited and precious calories. This is an extremely high bar to clear, and at least in my opinion it hasn't been cleared.

It's indeed a high bar to clear (though, in fact, few foods can meet it and it's arguably too high: what's your justification for eating zucchini, for instance?), but EVOO has quite successfully passed it, as documented earlier.not just from risk factors but from actual events, as documented near the beginning of this thread.

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3 hours ago, Michael R said:

It's indeed a high bar to clear (though, in fact, few foods can meet it and it's arguably too high: what's your justification for eating zucchini, for instance?), but EVOO has quite successfully passed it, as documented earlier.not just from risk factors but from actual events, as documented near the beginning of this thread.

Zucchini? Do you mean the food with even lower calorie density and higher nutrient density per calorie than strawberries? 😮 Perhaps you're right - it's too high of a bar. What would be a more sensical bar to clear is the marginal opportunity cost of adding olive oil to your diet, or substituting it for another source of calories. If you are already meeting your nutritional requirements (no need to go from 400% vit. K to 600%), it could provide higher marginal benefit than other, nominally more nutrient-dense, foods. 

I like you, you actually cite sources and can think critically. And I like the PREDIMED trial, it has its flaws obviously (all science must by its nature be incomplete) but a 7k person RCT is damn expensive and hard to pull off. The main limitation of relevance to this discussion which I don't see you address in your earlier post is that this work (and most of the other trials I see) were done on individuals with >= 3 risk factors for CVD and a rather high BMI. That's very much not a group I'm a part of, nor I think most of the people on this forum xD. Now it's better than no data, but I'd be cautious extrapolating to other groups, certainly not enough to issue a recommendation with confidence (although the epidemiological data points in the same direction). Pls link me if you are aware of similar studies in healthier populations. EVOO being comparable to nuts is surprising and interesting.

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SIRT1 Decreases Emotional Pain Vulnerability with Associated CaMKIIα Deacetylation in Central Amygdala

I will proof this. I have brother he is 15. And we started 3 days ago to a diet. (he is 173 cm and 70 kg). And he is a bit fatty.

He drinks olive oil 40-50 g in a little moment and after drinking he eats a chocolate(to drink, because i think benefits are more than harms). And today he said : I started feeling less emotinal pain when our parents are shouted. Like me.

Heyy. Who will explain it??

It is a proof that oleic acid activates SIRT1.

Edited by mgoktas20
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