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Olive oil is known as one of the best sources of monoun­sat­u­rated fatty acids, a type of fat that has been shown to improve blood cho­les­terol lev­els. It was thought that olive oil’s pro­tec­tive qual­i­ties were due mainly to the pres­ence of this type of fat. However, new research shows that its antiox­i­dant con­tent is equally impor­tant.

According to new data pub­lished in Clinical Nutrition, daily doses of extra vir­gin olive oil may pro­tect from ath­er­o­scle­ro­sis (hard­en­ing of the arter­ies).

The results came from the EurOlive Study, which involved researchers from uni­ver­si­ties in five European coun­tries, and was aimed at assess­ing the ben­e­fi­cial effects of olive oil on human health.

The researchers recruited 200 healthy men and ran­domly assigned them to one of three groups to con­sume 25 ml of olive oil every day with dif­fer­ent polyphe­nols lev­els.

The olive oils that were admin­is­tered included refined olive oil, which had a low polyphe­nol con­tent; com­mon olive oil with medium polyphe­nol con­tent and extra vir­gin, which had high phe­no­lic lev­els.

The results showed that the con­sump­tion of extra vir­gin olive oil increased the anti­body lev­els that reduce oxi­dized LDL cho­les­terol (bad cho­les­terol con­sid­ered a risk fac­tor of artery hard­en­ing and heart dis­ease).

This was not the first time that olive oil polyphe­nols have been found to have a pro­tec­tive effect against oxida­tive dam­age; pre­vi­ous stud­ies have also shown a pos­i­tive effect. However, there were ques­tions about whether real-life doses of olive oil can achieve this effect.

In this study the researchers had the sub­jects con­sume about 2 table­spoons of olive oil a day, a rea­son­able amount for non-Mediterranean coun­tries.

Greeks who have the high­est intake of olive oil per per­son in the world con­sume about 70 ml per day, while Spaniards and Italians include about 35 ml daily. The aver­age American con­sumes less than three mil­li­liters per day.

The other issue is the polyphe­nol con­tent. Studies have shown that extra vir­gin olive oil has more polyphe­nols than other olive oils that are processed.

Storage con­di­tions also play an impor­tant role. Oil that is stored in a dark, cool spot in a dark con­tainer retains more of its antiox­i­dants. Long stor­age times reduce the antiox­i­dant con­tent as well; the longer olive oil sits in a bot­tle unused, the more polyphe­nols it loses.

• The effect of olive oil polyphe­nols on anti­bod­ies against oxi­dized LDL