Olive Oil May Help Prevent and Treat Brain Cancer, Study Shows

Summary

The University of Edinburgh’s School of Biological Sciences con­ducted a study funded by the Medical Research Council and the Wellcome Trust that found oleic acid, present in foods like avo­ca­dos and olive oil, can sup­port the pro­duc­tion of tumor-sup­press­ing mol­e­cules in cells, poten­tially aid­ing in the pre­ven­tion and treat­ment of can­cer. The research, led by Gracjan Michlewski and pub­lished in the Journal of Molecular Biology, showed that oleic acid pre­vents a cell pro­tein from inhibit­ing the pro­duc­tion of miR‑7, a tumor sup­pres­sor that tar­gets crit­i­cal can­cer path­ways, offer­ing hope for new meth­ods to com­bat brain can­cer and other forms of the dis­ease.

The School of Biological Sciences at the University of Edinburgh released the excit­ing results of a recent study that could do won­ders for can­cer research.

Under the fund­ing of the Medical Research Council and the Wellcome Trust, the university’s sci­en­tists were ana­lyz­ing the effect of oleic acid on miR‑7, an active cell mol­e­cule in the brain and a tumor sup­pres­sor that tar­gets crit­i­cal can­cer path­ways.
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They dis­cov­ered that oleic acid, which is found in foods such as avo­ca­dos, nuts, sesame oil, and of course, olive oil, pre­vents a cell pro­tein known as MSI2 from stop­ping pro­duc­tion of miR‑7.

In stim­u­lat­ing the pro­duc­tion of miR, oleic acid helps pre­vent tumors from form­ing and may help break them down while they are still small. Researchers made their dis­cov­er­ies while test­ing on human cell extracts and on liv­ing HeLa cells in the lab, prov­ing the pro­teins in oleic acid to be ben­e­fi­cial to human cells.

Gracjan Michlewski, a pro­fes­sor and researcher at the university’s school of bio­log­i­cal sci­ences and the leader of the study, said that the research sug­gests that oleic acid could help the pro­duc­tion of mol­e­cules sup­press­ing tumors and there­fore could help pre­vent and pos­si­bly fight can­cer.

“While we can­not yet say that olive oil in the diet helps pre­vent brain can­cer, our find­ings do sug­gest that oleic acid can sup­port the pro­duc­tion of tumor-sup­press­ing mol­e­cules in cells grown in the lab. Further stud­ies could help deter­mine the role that olive oil might have in brain health,” Michlewski said.

Michlewski worked along­side Santosh Kumar and Angela Downie Ruiz Velasco on this study.

Given the low sur­vival rate of brain can­cer (the five-year sur­vival rate is only about 35 per­cent), their dis­cov­ery is no small feat. Further explo­ration of oleic acid’s impact on miR‑7 and other cell mol­e­cules will hope­fully reveal more about the poten­tial to fight can­cer with fatty acids such as those found in olive oil.

The com­plete study, pub­lished in the Journal of Molecular Biology, can be found here.

• University of Edinburgh School of Biological Sciences


• National Center for Biotechnology Information