`Exclusive Olive Oil Consumption Protects Against Coronary Artery Disease - Olive Oil Times
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Exclusive Olive Oil Consumption Protects Against Coronary Artery Disease

By Jedha Dening
Feb. 16, 2016 13:15 UTC

Coronary artery dis­ease (CAD) is the nar­row­ing of the coro­nary arter­ies and fre­quently leads to angina, myocar­dial infarc­tion, and heart fail­ure.

The Mediterranean diet and olive oil con­sump­tion of an aver­age two table­spoons per day have been attrib­uted in stud­ies as hav­ing ben­e­fi­cial effects for car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­ease. Now more specif­i­cally, stud­ies are show­ing some promis­ing results for a pro­tec­tive effect against CAD.

A study pub­lished in Public Health Nutrition revealed that even after tak­ing into account adher­ence to the Mediterranean diet, ​“exclu­sive olive oil con­sump­tion was asso­ci­ated with 37 per­cent lower like­li­hood of devel­op­ing coro­nary artery dis­ease.”

A case-con­trolled study con­ducted between 2006 – 2010, The Hellenic study of Interactions between Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms and Eating in Atherosclerosis Susceptibility (THISEAS), enrolled 1,221 par­tic­i­pants with coro­nary artery dis­ease and 1,344 con­trols.

The American Botanical Council reported on the THISEAS study, say­ing that, ​“The case patients had acute coro­nary syn­drome or CAD with > 50% steno­sis in at least 1 of the main coro­nary blood ves­sels.” The MedDiet score was used to assess adher­ence to the Mediterranean diet and olive oil con­sump­tion, with addi­tional ques­tion­naires report­ing on fat con­sump­tion.

The 37 per­cent lower like­li­hood of devel­op­ing CAD with exclu­sive olive oil con­sump­tion was thought to be ​“medi­ated through changes in oxida­tive stress, inflam­ma­tion, lipid per­ox­i­da­tion, and lipid pro­file,’ the Council said.

Another study pub­lished in the Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics, the GREECS obser­va­tional study, sup­ported the results of the THISEAS study, show­ing that exclu­sive use of olive oil, used as either a salad dress­ing or in cook­ing, helps reduce inci­dence of acute coro­nary syn­drome (ACS) and recur­rent car­diac episodes in car­diac patients.

The study ini­tially recruited 2,172 par­tic­i­pants with ACS, acute myocar­dial infarc­tion or unsta­ble angina, and later per­formed a 10-year fol­low-up in 1,918 patients. Dietary com­po­nents were recorded, includ­ing added fat intake of olive oil, but­ter, mar­garine and seed oils. The use of fats in daily cook­ing and food prepa­ra­tion was also recorded. Seventy-six per­cent of the group exclu­sively con­sumed olive oil, while the remain­ing 24 per­cent con­sumed other added fats.

According to the authors of the study, ​“The end­points stud­ied in the 10-year fol­low-up were recur­rent fatal or non­fa­tal ACS events.”

Those con­sum­ing other added fats had a 40 per­cent higher risk of recur­rent ACS events dur­ing the fol­low-up period. And, even though the MedDiet score was the same for both groups, those hav­ing acute myocar­dial infarc­tion was only 58 per­cent in the exclu­sive olive oil group com­pared to 71 per­cent in the other added fats group.

However, this result only remained sig­nif­i­cant in obese patients. The authors sug­gest­ing that olive oil may reduce the low-grade inflam­ma­tion that is well known to be asso­ci­ated with obe­sity. Whereas the other added fats ​“acti­vate the mech­a­nisms involved in the occur­rence of throm­bo­sis, inflam­ma­tion and oxi­da­tion.”

Like most stud­ies, there were some lim­i­ta­tions, includ­ing reliance on a hypoth­e­sis of the mech­a­nisms by which the pos­i­tive effects are exerted, lack of mea­sur­ing the level of myocar­dial dam­age, the exact amount of fat intake not being recorded, and the fact that dietary intake was only taken at base­line so poten­tial dietary changes over time were not taken into con­sid­er­a­tion.

More research is still needed in this area but the results of both stud­ies com­bined are promis­ing, show­ing that the con­sump­tion of olive oil on a reg­u­lar basis has a pro­tec­tive effect against coro­nary artery dis­ease.

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