Health Benefits of Olive Oil

Throughout the ages, olive oil has been widely used for medicinal as well as culinary purposes. It has been claimed to aid digestion, to delay ageing, to prevent liver disorders, to aid bone growth, to strengthen nails, to heal tissues, to lower blood pressure, to treat acne and to soothe neonatal skin, to name but a few.

Today many medical experts also believe that olive oil, when consumed as part of the world renowned Mediterranean diet, can in certain cases, help to prevent breast cancer, bowel cancer, diabetes and perhaps most well known, heart disease.

The Mediterranean diet first came to prominence in the 1950s during a study of world eating habits, which found the diet of the people of Crete to be the healthiest of all. Their diet was high in cereals, vegetables, fruit, fish and olive oil but low in dairy produce and meat, particularly red meat and, despite a high intake of fat, they had the lowest incidence of heart disease, because it was discovered the fat came from the only one source - olive oil.

In stark contrast, the typical Western diet of today is high in red meat and dairy produce whilst low in fish, fruit, vegetables, cereals and olive oil.
Fat is an essential part of any well balanced diet because it is a rich source of energy. It is also a source of cholesterol, the level of which in our bodies we are advised by The World Health Organisation to monitor and ideally keep to 5.2, although a level of up to 6.5 is considered acceptable.
There are essentially two main ‘types' of cholesterol, High Density Lipoproteins (HDL) and Low Density Lipoproteins (LDL). The HDL is considered to be ‘good' because it eliminates cholesterol from body cells and transports it to the liver for disposal, whereas the LDL is considered to be ‘bad' because it actually carries cholesterol around the body before depositing it in arteries and tissues.

It is well known that it is better to have more HDL than LDL and the ratio between the two is sometimes measured as well as your total cholesterol level when you have a cholesterol check.
Foods high in saturated fat (e.g., butter) increase the overall level of cholesterol (‘good' and ‘bad') whereas foods high in polyunsaturated fat (e.g., sunflower oil) decrease the level of both ‘good' and ‘bad.' However, foods high in monounsaturated fat, such as olive oil are by far the most beneficial as they reduce the ‘bad' cholesterol, whilst actually increasing the ‘good.'

Forget the “high in polyunsaturates” advertising.

•  Eat like the people of the Mediterranean and be healthier!

Product Constitution by Fat Type

	butter	margarine	sunflower oil	olive oil
% saturates	66%	22%	12%	15%
% polyunsaturates	3%	48%	65%	9%
% monounsaturates	31%	30%	23%	76%