Mill Wastewater Extract Yields Promising Health Benefits

Researchers from the Universities of Bologna, Palermo and Bari have been inves­ti­gat­ing the effec­tive­ness of a dietary sup­ple­ment obtained from olive mill waste­water on car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­eases.

The sup­ple­ment, sold com­mer­cially as Momast Plus 30 Bio (MP30B), is enriched with hydrox­y­ty­rosol, one of olive oil’s pri­mary polyphe­nols, using a patented tech­nique to extract the com­pound from olive mill waste­water.

Bioenutra, the com­pany that man­u­fac­tures MP30B, was not involved in the study.

Previous stud­ies have found that the sup­ple­ment exerts anti-inflam­ma­tory effects and removes reac­tive oxy­gen, which mit­i­gated heart infec­tions in in vivo stud­ies.

In ex vivo stud­ies, MP30B was also found to decrease the stiff­ness of the tho­racic artery, which is thought to pre­cede increased blood pres­sure.

The research also demon­strated that MP30B did not sig­nif­i­cantly alter the heart’s abil­ity to pump blood effec­tively or impact the blood ves­sel func­tion and health, known as car­diac and vas­cu­lar para­me­ters, in ex vivo stud­ies.

“Based on these find­ings, we posit MP30B as a promis­ing extract for car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­ease pre­ven­tion, and its spe­cific antibac­te­r­ial prop­er­ties sug­gest its util­ity in pre­vent­ing car­diac infec­tions,” the researchers wrote.

Along with the promis­ing health results from the study, the researchers said find­ing new uses for olive oil pro­duc­tion byprod­ucts helps increase the sus­tain­abil­ity of the pro­duc­tion process and sub­sti­tutes a cost for millers with an addi­tional rev­enue stream.

An esti­mated 30 mil­lion cubic meters of olive mill waste­water are pro­duced yearly in the Mediterranean basin. Due to its high con­tent of phe­no­lic com­pounds, this waste­water must be treated before dis­posal.

“Olive mill waste­water poses an impor­tant waste man­age­ment prob­lem since the lack of con­ven­tional treat­ment can coun­ter­act its high tox­i­c­ity,” the researchers wrote. ​“However, phe­no­lic com­pounds in the waste­water rep­re­sent an oppor­tu­nity to ​‘upcy­cle’ this waste to obtain high-added-value prod­ucts.”

Their study, con­ducted on guinea pigs, found that Momast Plus 30 Bio inhib­ited the abil­ity of enzymes to syn­the­size nitric oxide, a free rad­i­cal, the over­pro­duc­tion of which can pro­mote inflam­ma­tion and oxida­tive stress.

“Our results sug­gest that MP30B can also inter­fere with inflam­ma­tory processes affect­ing the car­dio­vas­cu­lar sys­tem by coun­ter­act­ing the dele­te­ri­ous effects caused by uncon­trolled nitric oxide biosyn­the­sis,” the researchers wrote.

They also found hydrox­y­ty­rosol’s antibac­te­r­ial prop­er­ties in MP30B, espe­cially against infec­tive endo­cardi­tis, a bac­te­r­ial or fun­gal heart infec­tion with a rel­a­tively high in-hos­pi­tal mor­tal­ity rate.

“Streptococci are among the most fre­quent causes of infec­tive endo­cardi­tis,” the researchers wrote. ​“MP30B has actions on all types of strep­to­cocci tested.”

“Comparing the results of MP30B with those obtained using the ref­er­ence antibi­otic lev­ofloxacin on Streptococcus pyo­genes ATCC or FL, it is observed that MP30B is more potent both as a bac­te­ri­ci­dal and as a bac­te­rio­sta­tic on Streptococci FL; con­trary to what was observed for lev­ofloxacin whose actions are more sig­nif­i­cant in ATCC bac­te­ria,” they added.

The researchers con­cluded that the hydrox­y­ty­rosol-enriched dietary sup­ple­ment demon­strated poten­tial as a food sup­ple­ment to pre­vent car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­eases and sug­gested that fur­ther research should inves­ti­gate its impact on breast can­cer.

“Studies on the car­diotoxic effects of anti-tumor ther­a­pies demon­strate the pro­tec­tive action of hydrox­y­ty­rosol in breast can­cer car­diotox­i­c­ity, increas­ing the poten­tial appli­ca­tions of MP30B,” they wrote.