more on olive oil

[jhandley]

More Good News About Olive Oil
Danish researchers have published a new study showing that healthy European men who consume the equivalent of a quarter cup of olive oil per day reduce oxidative damage to cells that could lead to cancer. The investigators suggested that their findings might help explain why cancer rates are lower in olive-oil-consuming southern European countries than they are in northern Europe where olive oil isn’t as widely used. A total of 182 men between the ages of 20 and 60 took part in the study and for two weeks consumed a quarter cup of olive oil throughout each day. Afterwards, the researchers found a 13 percent decrease in 8oxodG, a marker of oxidative damage to DNA in cells. Although olive oil contains beneficial antioxidant phenols (three different olive oils with varying levels of phenols were used in the study) the researchers speculated that the monounsaturated fats in olive oil were responsible for the changes they saw. At the outset, the northern European men participating had higher levels of 8oxodG than did the men from southern Europe, which the researchers said was an expected effect of the olive oil rich Mediterranean diet. The study was published in the January 2007 issue of the FASEB Journal, a publication of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology.

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