Philip J. Goscienski, M.D.
December 2005
At a time when some physicians try to convince us to limit our fat calories to 30 percent or less, others point out that folks in Mediterranean countries get that much or more from olive oil alone. Sloshing around in all that olive oil can't be so bad. They happen to be among the healthiest and longest-lived population groups on the planet, with very low rates of heart disease, stroke and cancer.
Humans and olive trees have coexisted around the Mediterranean Sea for a few hundred thousand years and it probably didn't take those Stone Agers very long to find out that olives were worth gathering. Of course, they didn't make oil from olive fruit until fairly recently. Humans didn't develop pottery until about the time they became farmers and stopped their wandering ways, and olive presses were still a long way off.
Olive oil had a long head start on the kinds of vegetable oils we're so familiar with today. By Roman times there were more than 100 varieties of olive, though only a few contribute to the modern olive oil industry. Once olive oil production got rolling it never stopped. Even though we don't need it any more for lamps, body cleansing or lubrication, millions of gallons drizzle and trickle through the world's kitchens.
Is there really anything special about the health benefits of olive oil? Absolutely. The main fat in olive oil is monounsaturated. That means each molecule of fat still has room to accept one more molecule of hydrogen, which keeps it from clogging up blood vessels in the heart and brain.
One of the constituents of olive oil is squalene, which has anti-tumor properties in the laboratory and cancer-lowering benefits in people. Oleic acid, the main component of olive oil, suppresses a gene that is associated with the aggressiveness of certain types of breast cancer.
You should choose olive oil based on your taste preferences, not on the basis of color or cost, both of which are easy to manipulate. Unless you use it every day, buy your olive oil in small bottles made of dark glass, kept tightly sealed to prevent it from becoming rancid and losing its flavor.
Modern Mediterraneans are unlearning some of their ancient wisdom. As they acquire Western tastes they are acquiring Western diseases. Greece now has an increasingly obese population in which the incidence of heart disease and diabetes is growing dramatically. What a contrast with the Greek population of the 1960s, whose health and longevity launched dozens of research projects in the next 40 years.
Olive oil is probably not the only reason that persons who eat a traditional Mediterranean diet live longer, and have less high blood pressure, heart disease and cancer. They eat plenty of fruits and vegetables, almost no red meat, not nearly as much cheese and pasta as you might think, and they get plenty of exercise. All these factors certainly matter. And did I mention wine? We'll save that last one for another column.
Philip J. Goscienski, M.D. is the author of Health Secrets of the Stone Age, Better Life Publishers 2005. Contact him at drphil@stoneagedoc.com.