This oil could save your life

Imagine with me for a moment, that you are my patient, in my office, and we are reviewing my recommendations for foods to keep you healthy, diet recommendations to reduce your risk of cancer, or heart attack, or dementia, or just to live as long and healthy as possible. That's not hard for me to imagine, because I do that every week with patients in my office.  It may be hard for you to imagine, as perhaps you never had a doctor who wanted to talk in detail about the healing power of foods, but that's a different story. 

What do you imagine I would tell you to eat more of?  Or to stay away from?  What "superfood" would I recommend to you?  Or would it be more likely I would recommend nutritional supplements and pills?  If you know me at all, you know that you would not be hearing about any single "superfood," but that I would be recommending overall dietary patterns, ways of eating that utilize the balance of nature and may be drawn from traditional eating patterns like a Mediterranean diet. That's good science and good eating. 

But today I am going to ask you to focus on one particular food and to eat more of it and eat it more often.  Not only because Americans on average get very little of this magic food, but also because the science supporting its status as a health game-changer just keeps getting stronger. What is this wizard in a bottle?  Olive oil. 

In a previous post, I asked you to be aware of the "3 F's," fiber, flax seeds, and fats.  Now I'm focusing on the fats, specifically one fat that we Americans are often missing in our diets.  Six of ten Americans never buy olive oil.  Average American olive oil consumption per capita is one tenth of that in Italy and even less compared to Spain or Greece. We are olive oil poor as a people.

A study published just this week in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (sounds serious doesn't it?) looked at 28 years of death data in a sample of over 90,000 men and women who started the study without heart disease or cancer.  Over time, one simple behavior made a huge difference in whether they lived or died: did they consume olive oil every day?  The people who consumed on average more than 1/2 tablespoon of olive oil per day were less likely to have died by the end of the study.  And not just a little less likely, a lot less likely. Specifically, 19% less likely to have died of anything, 19% less likely to have died of heart disease, 17% less likely to have died of cancer, 29% less likely to have died of degenerative nervous system diseases, and 18% less likely to have died of lower respiratory disease. So while prescription drugs such as statins for cholesterol are effective at preventing cardiac disease and deaths, and you should continue to take them if you have a prescription, don't ever ignore the power of foods to reduce your disease risk. Enjoying olive oil daily looks like it could save your life. 

So however you like it, find a way to incorporate this delicious food into your day: saute vegetables with it, use it on bread instead of butter, use it with vinegar as a salad dressing, however you can enjoy it!  Bon appetit, and live long!

Robert Pendergrast, MD, MPH