Embrace the health benefits of olive oil

Some scientists say that the people of the Mediterranean are among the healthiest in the world. And as diverse as their cultures are, one food ingredient unites their culinary traditions: olive oil. Let's learn about its many benefits.

• Scientists have known for decades that people who consume plenty of olive oil have low rates of heart disease.
• Nutritionists have been lavishing praise upon the Mediterranean diet for so long that it's easy to forget how radical the idea was that certain fats, like olive oil, could be good for the heart. But in the mid-1980s, a long-term study comparing rates of cardiovascular disease in seven countries revealed that heart attacks were relatively uncommon in countries where the people consumed lots of olive oil, including Italy and Greece.
• Today there's little doubt that olive oil — especially virgin olive oil, which undergoes minimal processing — protects the cardiovascular system. Researchers asked 22 people to eat several different meal plans for 24 days at a time, including a low-fat diet and a diet rich in olive oil and other sources of monounsaturated fat. They found that diets high in olive oil lowered cholesterol just as effectively as a low-fat diet.
• These diets lowered triglycerides, too, while the low-fat diet actually caused levels of these blood fats to rise. Overall, the study showed that the olive oil diet lowered the risk of heart attacks by 25 percent, which made it twice as effective as the low-fat diet.
• More recent studies suggest that olive oil does more than lower cholesterol and blood fats. In a study involving 772 volunteers, people who prepared meals with olive oil lowered their risk factors for heart disease more than others who ate a low-fat diet. Their blood pressure improved more, as did their ratio of total cholesterol to high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol. Their blood sugar fell slightly, too, lowering the risk of type 2 diabetes, a condition linked with heart disease.
• Still other studies show that olive oil acts a bit like aspirin, reducing levels of chronic low-grade inflammation, another culprit behind heart attacks.
• Finally, olive oil is teeming with antioxidants, which act on cholesterol to make it less likely to stick to artery walls.

Olive oil is a powerful superfood and it's probably wise to try and incorporate more of it into your diet. As an extra benefit, it's delicious! So add a Mediterranean flair to your cooking and safeguard your health with one easy move: using more olive oil.