Extra virgin olive oil against breast cancer
The benefits of the Mediterranean diet are almost incalculable. On many occasions it has been shown that this lifestyle has very positive repercussions on people. In this sense, a new study has shown that a Mediterranean diet rich in extra virgin olive oil can reduce the risk of breast cancer.
In particular, this study conducted by Spanish researchers estimated in two thirds the reduction of chances of suffering from this disease. Thus, it indicates that for every five percent of calories coming from this type of oil, 28 percent is reduced by risk of suffering from a breast tumor, one of the most frequent causes of death in women.
Preventive use of the Mediterranean diet
The work has been coordinated by the University of Navarra and the Center for Biomedical Research in Network-Physiopathology of Obesity and Nutrition (Ciberobn) and has had as conclusion the discovery of the preventive value of the Mediterranean diet against breast cancer.
"It's a very strong find", Miguel Angel Martínez-González, Professor of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, who has confessed that in a few occasions "we have a news so nice to give to society ", The one who is also coordinator of the study and member of the Health Research Institute of Navarra (IDISNA) has indicated.
To reach this conclusion, the work, which has been published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, has been based on a follow-up to almost 4,300 Spanish women for an average of 4.8 years. Now, the work does not stop there: the next step is to verify these results with other works that use samples from higher populations.
Also, the following research in this field should determine if it is the intake of virgin olive oil alone that decreases the risk of developing breast cancer or if, on the contrary, it is the consumption of this type of oil, but framed in a healthy diet like the Mediterranean, the determining factor in said reduction.
Study with extra virgin olive oil
To carry out this work, between 2003 and 2009, 4,282 women aged between 60 and 80 were recruited. they had a high risk of cardiovascular disease. The participants were divided into three groups according to the type of diet they were going to take: a Mediterranean one supplemented with extra virgin olive oil, another one in which besides the oil were included nuts, and a third diet based on recommendations to reduce fat intake.
The results showed that the members of the first two groups presented a risk of having breast cancer up to two thirds less which was seen in the third group analyzed, which leads the authors of this study to affirm that the extra virgin olive oil "It is the only one of the olive oils with antitumor effects".
To reach this conclusion, the participants were also submitted to biochemical analysis who showed that, as they believed, the women of groups one and two they had consumed more extra virgin olive oil than her classmates in group three.
Another step that this group of researchers wants to overcome consists of analyze the relationship between the consumption of olive oil and other types of cancer, for what these experts already analyze other results related to the intake of extra virgin olive oil and the malignant colorectal tumor, the lung, prostate and stomach.
Angela R. Bonachera
