`Researchers Isolate Extra Virgin Olive Oil Component With Potential Antihypertensive Properties - Olive Oil Times
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enEnglish
enEnglishfrFrançaiselελληνικάdeDeutscheitItalianozh-CN中文ptPortuguêsesEspañoltrTürkçehrHrvatskija日本語hiहिंदी

Researchers Isolate Extra Virgin Olive Oil Component With Potential Antihypertensive Properties

By Costas Vasilopoulos
Aug. 1, 2019 09:15 UTC
Summary Summary

Researchers from Athens University in Greece iso­lated eleno­lide, a com­pound in extra vir­gin olive oil that may help lower high blood pres­sure, after test­ing over 2,000 sam­ples of olive oil. Elenolide was found in 80% of the sam­ples, with higher con­cen­tra­tions in oils from unripe olives processed at two-phase mills with min­i­mal water added, and its pres­ence may serve as a marker for high-qual­ity olive oils with low water con­tent.

Researchers from the Department of Pharmacognosy of Athens University in Greece, have man­aged to detect and iso­late a con­stituent of extra vir­gin olive oil that could act against high blood pres­sure.

The new ingre­di­ent, called eleno­lide, had already been found in olive leaves and fruits in the past, but now for the first time, it was iso­lated and exam­ined in high-phe­no­lic sam­ples of extra vir­gin olive oil.

For the sake of the research, a total of 2,120 mono­va­ri­etal EVOO sam­ples from var­i­ous coun­tries were tested, made from olives har­vested in eight con­sec­u­tive years from 2010 to 2018. It was found that eleno­lide was present in 80 per­cent of the sam­ples, and higher con­cen­tra­tions of the sub­stance were found in olive oils com­ing from unripe olives with high-phe­no­lic load processed at a two-phase mill with min­i­mal water added dur­ing malax­a­tion.

Elenolide is a non-phe­no­lic com­pound of olive oil related to oleu­ropein or ligstro­side, trans­form­ing to eleno­lic acid when react­ing with water. The research pin­pointed the con­nec­tion between eleno­lide and eleno­lic acid, and fur­ther­more showed that the quan­tity of eleno­lide is directly depen­dent on the amount of the remain­ing water in olive oil.

Elenolide has already been char­ac­ter­ized as an anti­hy­per­ten­sive agent, and its reported exis­tence in extra vir­gin olive oil could be another valu­able addi­tion to the traits and qual­i­ties of olive oil.

In advance and due to its sen­si­tiv­ity to water, the researchers sug­gested, eleno­lide could also be used as a means to study the impact of the remain­ing water on olive oil in stor­age con­di­tions, and as a marker of high-qual­ity EVOOs with low water con­tained in them.



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