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LONDON — British doctors added olive oil on Tuesday to the list of foods that may help to prevent colon cancer.
A new study by researchers at the University of Oxford adds to the growing body of evidence that shows olive oil, a staple of the Mediterranean diet, is as good as fresh fruit and vegetables in keeping colon cancer at bay. Dr Michael Goldacre and a team of researchers at the Institute of Health Sciences compared cancer rates, diets and olive oil consumption in 28 countries including Europe, Britain, the United States, Brazil, Colombia, Canada and China.
Countries with a diet high in meat and low in vegetables had the highest rates of the disease and olive oil was associated with a decreased risk. "Olive oil may have a protective effect on the development of colon cancer," Goldacre said in a report in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. Meat, fish and olive oil were the key elements of the diets in terms of the cancer. Meat and fish combined were positively associated with the incidence of cancer but olive oil had a negative effect.
The researchers suspect olive oil protects against bowel cancer by influencing the metabolism of the gut. They think it cuts the amount of a substance called deoxycyclic acid and regulates the enzyme diamine oxidase which may be linked to cell division in the bowel. "The olive oil seems to reduce the amount of bile acid and increase the levels of the enzyme thought to beneficially regulate cell turnover in the gut," Goldacre said in a telephone interview. Meat has the opposite effect because it tends to increase the amount of bile acid. Earlier animal studies have shown the benefits of olive oil over safflower and fish oil on pre-cancerous cells and tumor growth.
Japanese scientists also claim that virgin olive oil applied to the skin after sunbathing could protect against skin cancer by slowing tumor growth. Colon cancer is the second most common cancer in many Western countries. It is much more prevalent in the industrialized world than in developing nations in Asia and Africa. The main treatment is surgery to remove the cancerous area of the bowel and chemotherapy if the disease has spread.
Report: Research Study Shows Positive Effects of Olive Oil on Hypertension
People on high blood pressure medications may be able to reduce the amount of medicine they take if they substitute extra virgin olive oil for other types of fats in their diet, a study in the March 27, 2000 issue of the journal, Archives of Internal Medicine, reports. "The most important finding in this study is that the daily use of olive oil, about 40 grams per day, markedly reduces the dosage of (blood pressure medication) by about 50% in patients on a previously stable drug dosage" says L. Aldo Ferrara, M.D., Associate Professor of Internal Medicine at the Frederico II University of Naples in Naples, Italy and the study's author.
During the 12 month study, "daily dosages of blood pressure medication was reduced by 48 % during the olive oil diet and by 4% during the sunflower oil diet" reports Ferrara. Ferrara explains that only extra virgin olive oil contains antioxidants called "polyphenols", which he and his fellow researchers think may be responsible for the drop in blood pressure seen in this study. Polyphenols are completely absent from sunflower oil, according to Ferrara and his colleagues. Continued research in this area is expected
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