Your brain on olive oil
What works better than an Alzheimer's drug?
A study tested the effect of doing nothing more than gulping down two tablespoons of olive oil every day, and found it did something really good: It strengthened the blood-brain barrier. The name of the study is: Extra-Virgin Olive Oil Enhances the Blood–Brain Barrier Function in Mild Cognitive Impairment: A Randomized Controlled Trial.
Your blood-brain barrier keeps toxins out of your brain and makes it more possible to clear out things that shouldn’t accumulate in the brain (like tau proteins and amyloid peptides). A strong barrier can help prevent inflammation and keep a good blood flow in your brain.
In other words, the blood-brain barrier protects the brain. It has been demonstrated in previous studies that the breakdown of the blood-brain barrier can lead to cognitive decline and dementia. In Alzheimer’s patients the blood-brain barrier has become less of a barrier. Too permeable. Things get in that shouldn’t get in.
There are lots of conditions that can cause a deterioration of the blood-brain barrier –like atherosclerosis, diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, etc. So why did scientists want to experiment with olive oil?
Because several studies have shown a Mediterranean diet improves cognitive function and can slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease, and one of the important ingredients in the Mediterranean diet is extra virgin olive oil.
But the study I want to tell you about here compared the effect of refined olive oil versus extra virgin olive oil on the blood-brain barrier.
The researchers gave half the participants two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil every day for six months, and gave the other half two tablespoons of refined olive oil every day. They were told to consume the oil raw (not cook with it).
What’s the difference between extra virgin olive oil and refined olive oil? Extra virgin olive oil is what you get when you do nothing but squish the olives. Oil comes out, and that’s extra virgin olive oil. Nothing else is done to it.
Even more oil can be extracted from the already-pressed olives if you use refining methods like heat and chemicals. The result of this second process is refined olive oil.
All the participants had mild cognitive impairment at the start of the study.
The researchers tested the participants’ cognitive abilities, gave them a blood test looking for the markers of Alzheimer’s, and also did MRI scans of their brains to look at the blood-brain barrier. They did these tests before and after the six months of olive oil.
Refined olive oil didn’t do anything to the blood-brain barrier. The extra virgin olive oil strengthened it. The extra virgin olive oil group demonstrated “a significant reduction” (according to the authors of the study) in blood-brain permeability after six months.
But both oils improved the participants’ scores on cognitive tests. Both olive oil groups showed a “significant improvement in memory” according to the researchers. Both kinds of olive oil also reduced the blood markers of Alzheimer’s.
This all leads to the astounding conclusion that two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil per day works better than the best Alzheimer’s drugs on the market! Olive oil not only improved cognition, it improved brain structure. The very best anti-amyloid drugs only slow cognitive decline – they don’t improve anything.
And olive oil caused no unhealthy side effects. The participants didn’t even gain weight.
Dr. Dale Bredesen eats studies like this for breakfast, and he recommends four tablespoons of high quality organic extra virgin olive oil every day. With his track record, I think we should listen.