When a food gets the kind of press olive oil has gotten over the years, it’s usually worthwhile to see what all the fuss is about. Many of you probably already have, and, if the rest of your diet has followed suit, I’d be willing to bet that your heart is better off for it. But some new research shows that it’s not just your heart that reaps olive oil’s benefits: It also has significant anti-cancer properties.

Researchers from five different European countries recently conducted a study to determine olive oil’s role in the dramatically different cancer rates between people living in northern European countries versus those living in southern Europe. The participants were instructed to consume a little less than 1/4 cup of olive oil per day for three weeks.

Over the course of the study, the researchers collected urine samples from the subjects and analyzed them for chemicals that indicate some sort of oxidative damage has taken place to cells. Oxidative damage is one of the first steps in the biochemical chain reaction that spurs cancer formation.

At the beginning of the investigation, the levels of this marker were much higher in the Northern Europeans than they were in those from Southern Europe. But by the end of the study, the Northern Europeans’ levels had risen significantly.

Typically, these benefits would be credited to the phenols found in olive oil. Phenols are natural compounds that act as antioxidants, preventing the damage I mentioned above. But in this case, the researchers found that even when they reduced the levels of phenols in the olive oil the subjects consumed, they still experienced the same degree of benefit and protection. It’s a mystery the researchers plan to keep investigating.

In the meantime, suffice it to say that olive oil definitely lives up to the hype.

Nutrition & Healing Source:

“Effect of olive oils on biomarkers of oxidative DNA stress in Northern and Southern Europeans,” FASEB J 2007; 21(1): 45-52