Extra Virgin Olive Oil: An Important Ally for Prevention

The phenols present in Extra Virgin Olive Oil help health

Extra virgin olive oil, a product at the base of the Mediterranean diet, is increasingly proving to be a valuable product for our health.

On the occasion of World Cancer Day , a global awareness campaign to raise awareness and educate about tumors, prevention and research, we wanted to present an article that came out a few years ago in a prestigious scientific journal, “Scientific American”, and taken up on the website of the same in its Italian edition.

It states that Extra Virgin Olive Oil (or EVO oil) contains a significant amount of chemical substances capable of causing and accelerating the death of tumor cells . This data is taken from the open access journal “BMC Cancer” and, needless to say, opens a new consideration on the positive correlations and interactions between the Mediterranean Diet and its content of olive oil, as we repeat, the main source of fat, and the reduction of the risk of neoplasia (in this case the article talks about breast cancer).

Two researchers, Javier Menendez of the Catalan Institute of Oncology and Antonio Segura Carretero of the University of Granada, have dedicated themselves to a line of research aimed at identifying which constituents of olive oil were implicated in protection against the onslaught of tumors.

Menendez illustrated how the results of their study showed that the main complex phenols present in Extra Virgin Olive Oil dramatically reduce the excessive expression (i

Olio extravergine e prevenzione Coppini Arte Olearia

e. activity) of the HER2 oncogene in human breast cancer cells.

In previous articles it was underlined that Extra Virgin Olive Oil was the result of the “cold” pressing of olives, therefore without the intervention of heat or chemical treatments; thanks to these simple and natural procedures it is possible to maintain the natural bio-phytochemical substances that would otherwise be lost in other refining processes.

In the laboratory, the different components of the Oil were then separated and tested on cancer cells: all the chemical fractions containing polyphenols (them again!) such as lignans and secoiridoids were shown to be able to inhibit the expressivity of the HER2 oncogenes.

It is necessary to underline that this very marked antitumor activity has been verified in the laboratory on tumor cells cultivated and subjected to the action of high concentrations of phenols not easily reachable with the normal consumption of olive oil; nevertheless these results should constitute a stimulus to the adoption of a "healthy" dietary plan that sees at its center the consumption of extra virgin olive oil obtained by cold pressing, the only extraction method that allows the product to preserve very high quantities of healthy polyphenols.

On the occasion of World Cancer Day 2020 we have chosen to share the initiatives of the oncology department of the Ospedale Maggiore in Parma .