Consuming a diet high in extra virgin olive oil may help reduce the likelihood of drug-induced cardiomyopathies, according to a new study from Umm Al Qura University, in Saudi Arabia.
The goal of the study, which was published in the Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmacognosy Research, was to evaluate the therapeutic influence of extra virgin olive oil, both as an anti-hypertensive and cardioprotective against doxorubicin-induced cardiomyopathy in rats.
Extra virgin olive oil is well-known for its many health benefits, including anti-inflammatory and anti-diabetic properties as well as protecting against heart diseases, like cardiomyopathies.
In the study, the researchers created five separate groups of rats: a control group, a disease control group (which were injected with doxorubicin) and three therapeutic groups, which were also injected. The rats in the therapeutic groups were given a diet supplemented with different levels of extra virgin olive oil (2.5 percent, five percent and 10 percent).
The cardioprotective, anti-hypertensive and antioxidant potential of extra virgin olive oil were then studied by measuring different blood, serum and tissue biomarkers, enzymes and hemodynamic parameters in each of the five groups.
The results showed that the rats in the therapeutic group that consumed the diet supplemented by 10 percent extra virgin olive oil had lower levels of cholesterol and an enzyme attributed to cardiomyopathy than the rats in the four other groups.
Rats in all three therapeutic groups had higher levels of antioxidants in their blood than the rats in either control group as well.
“Dietary administration of extra virgin olive oil has the potential to reduce drug-induced cardiomyopathies and sustained use of extra virgin olive oil in the diet could be cardioprotective and useful against high blood pressure,” Waleed Hassan AlMalki and Imran Shahid concluded.
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