2023-05-09 08:55:29
Dr. Estruch, one of those responsible for the PREDIMED study on the Mediterranean diet, has focused on the prevention of cardiovascular health; Dr. Escribano has emphasized the benefits of olive oil in sport: and Dr. López Segura, one of the promoters of the CORDIOPREV study, has highlighted the positive effects that this oil has on cardiovascular patients.
These three specialists, members of the Panel of Experts of the Spanish Olive Oil Interprofessional, present their presentations and statements based on the medical and scientific evidence of the research carried out.
Ramón Estruch: benefits of olive oil in cardiovascular prevention
“We think that the Mediterranean diet is the healthiest that we can recommend to patients, relatives, friends and everyone. And within the Mediterranean diet, olive oil is at the center”, highlights this doctor.
“It is a very healthy fat, very rich in polyphenols, which helps to consume other healthy products such as vegetables,” he adds.
Olive oil, he continues, “affects many targets of cardiovascular prevention, with an antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effect; it can be said that consuming olive oil, especially extra virgin, helps to extend life”.
In the PREDIMED study, which made the front page of the New York Times, “we irrefutably demonstrated, with the highest level of scientific evidence, that the Mediterranean diet helps in the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease.”
Professor Estruch recommends five tablespoons of olive oil a day for everything, both for cooking and dressing.
Do we have a population aware of what olive oil contributes to health?, we asked him.
“He is improving a lot. There is a general awareness that olive oil is a healthy product and within a healthy diet pattern such as the Mediterranean the maximum benefit is achieved, but we must continue, without letting our guard down, especially with the younger population”, answer.
For doctor Estruch, “we must invest in health education, put dietitians in health centers, give nutrition classes in institutes and schools. We have a jewel of food that we cannot lose and must be maintained: olive oil”.
Antonio Escribano: benefits in sport
For Dr. Escribano, olive oil, health and sport form a “perfect triangle, with its perfectly marked angles, although people do not know this interrelationship”.
“Everyone knows that olive oil is good for health because of the fats it contains, the antioxidants, but it is rarely related to sports activity, which is an extension of the physical activity that millions of people practice daily,” underlines.
In endurance sports, such as cycling, marathons, half marathons, “it is essential as fuel.”
In strength and power sports, such as combat, “the anti-inflammatory effect is essential to avoid complications in the muscles. And in team sports, everything is mixed up a bit, ”he exposes. “There is no sport that olive oil is not good for,” she says.
“A person in his life -explains Dr. Escribano- eats 70,000 kilos of food, you have to know how to choose, variety is essential. When this rainbow of food is used it is like a fleet of ships that reaches the stomach. Olive oil has a great department and a great role in this task for all its beneficial effects on health”.
This Nutrition expert stresses that “olive oil is an investment in health; the population must be made aware. Olive oil is the best fat to use when doing sports”.
Fernando López Segura: benefits of olive oil in cardiovascular patients
The CORDIOPREV study, published in The Lancet in May 2022, demonstrated the benefits of olive oil in cardiovascular diseases.
“Since we designed, finished and published them, 20 years have passed. It was an ambitious study that, together with PREDIMED, had the objective of demonstrating the value of olive oil for health, and that it improves, prevents and avoids cardiovascular diseases, or in people who already have these pathologies, prevents them from returning to repeated”, explains López Segura.
CORDIOPREV was done on people who had already had a heart attack, and “we have shown, nothing more and nothing less, that people with cardiovascular events who have consumed virgin olive oil within the Mediterranean diet, reinfarct or die 28% less, and in the group of men, 33% less”.
For López Segura, “we must continue researching and delve into the magic of olive oil and study its mechanisms on how it works to demonstrate antioxidant, anticoagulant, endothelial protection, cholesterol, and antitumor effects.”
One of the pending tasks, highlights this doctor, is “to continue insisting on transmitting the message that we have a food product that is more effective than medicines for the health problem that causes more deaths, cardiovascular diseases, more than cancer”.
Although he admits that the population is not aware of the beneficial effects of olive oil on health, López Segura is optimistic: “I am very optimistic because science is unstoppable. We have irrefutable scientific evidence. We are going to take longer than desired to reach the consciousness of the population, but slower or faster, we will arrive, I have no doubts”.
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