`Study Sheds New Light on Benefits of High-Phenolic EVOO for Older Adults With Cognitive Impairment - Olive Oil Times
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Study Sheds New Light on Benefits of High-Phenolic EVOO for Older Adults With Cognitive Impairment

By Paolo DeAndreis
Nov. 24, 2020 09:22 UTC

The long-term daily con­sump­tion of extra vir­gin olive oil could ben­e­fit elderly peo­ple with cog­ni­tive impair­ments even more than pre­vi­ously thought, accord­ing to a new study from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and the Greek Association of Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders.

The research, which was pub­lished in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, tested the effects of high-phe­no­lic early-har­vest extra vir­gin olive oil (HP-EH-EVOO) against mod­er­ate phe­no­lic extra vir­gin olive oil (MP-EVOO) and the Mediterranean diet.

Until today, there is no other study which has exam­ined in such a detailed man­ner the effects of Greek extra vir­gin olive oil in elders with amnes­tic mild cog­ni­tive impair­ment as an effec­tive solu­tion.- researchers, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and the Greek Association of Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders

The researchers found that HP-EH-EVOO served as a nat­ural ther­a­peu­tic phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pound for older adults with amnes­tic mild cog­ni­tive impair­ment, which is con­sid­ered a pro­dro­mal con­di­tion to the devel­op­ment of Alzheimer’s dis­ease.

While there is no treat­ment for either amnes­tic mild cog­ni­tive impair­ment or Alzheimer’s dis­ease, based on pre­vi­ous research on the sub­ject, the Greek sci­en­tists decided to inves­ti­gate how extra vir­gin olive oil could play a role in mit­i­gat­ing or arrest­ing the devel­op­ment of amnes­tic mild cog­ni­tive impair­ment.

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Previous stud­ies have shown the ther­a­peu­tic effects of fol­low­ing a Mediterranean diet on improv­ing cog­ni­tive func­tions while decreas­ing the risk of amnes­tic mild cog­ni­tive impair­ment pro­gress­ing to Alzheimer’s dis­ease.

Another study cited by the researchers showed the con­sump­tion of extra vir­gin olive oil delayed the onset of Alzheimer’s dis­ease in trans­genic mice.

“The results of this study sug­gest that the long-term con­sump­tion of an extra vir­gin olive oil-con­tain­ing diet start­ing at an early age pro­vides a pro­tec­tive effect against Alzheimer’s dis­ease and its related dis­or­der cere­bral amy­loid angiopa­thy,” the researchers wrote.

“A long-term inter­ven­tion with an extra vir­gin olive oil-rich MedDiet in 285 par­tic­i­pants with high vas­cu­lar risk resulted in bet­ter cog­ni­tive func­tion­ing when com­pared to a con­trol diet,” they added.

In order to test the dif­fer­ence between the three diets – HP-EH-EVOO, MP-EVOO and the tra­di­tional MedDiet – the researchers assigned their patients to three dif­fer­ent groups.

The results of the study demon­strated that par­tic­i­pants fol­low­ing an HP-EH-EVOO vari­a­tion of the MedDiet fared bet­ter in the 12-month fol­low-up per­for­mance in almost all cog­ni­tive domains of the Alzheimer’s dis­ease assess­ment scale-cog­ni­tive sub­scale, which is a scale used to under­stand the level of cog­ni­tive impair­ment caused by the dis­ease, than adher­ents to the other two diets.

Those patients also fared bet­ter with digit span, which focuses on the work­ing mem­ory activ­ity and let­ter flu­ency.

Furthermore, adher­ents to the MP-EVOO vari­a­tion of the MedDiet fared bet­ter on the same cog­ni­tive tests than par­tic­i­pants in the con­trol group, who fol­lowed a stan­dard Mediterranean diet.

According to the sci­en­tists, their research showed that ​“long-term inter­ven­tion with HP-EH-EVOO or MP-EVOO was asso­ci­ated with sig­nif­i­cant improve­ment in cog­ni­tive func­tion com­pared to a Mediterranean diet.”

“Until today, there is no other study which has exam­ined in such a detailed man­ner the effects of Greek extra vir­gin olive oil in elders with amnes­tic mild cog­ni­tive impair­ment as an effec­tive solu­tion for cog­ni­tive impair­ment,” the researchers added.

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