How Fatty Acids in EVOO Might Mitigate Age-Related Diseases

February 2020

A research team at the Uni­ver­sity of Min­nesota says it has found how fast­ing, exer­cis­ing and lim­it­ing caloric intake may boost the lifes­pan of peo­ple who reg­u­larly con­sume extra vir­gin olive oil.

This work does pro­vide new insights into how nutri­ents reg­u­late aging and we hope will lead to advances in drug devel­op­ment. - Doug Mashek, lead researcher from the Uni­ver­sity of Min­nesota

The sci­en­tists found that the ben­e­fi­cial effects of the monoun­sat­u­rated fats are real­ized once the fats have been bro­ken down, which is why fast­ing and exer­cise are essen­tial to real­iz­ing greater ben­e­fits.

“We found that the way this fat works is it first has to get stored in micro­scopic things called lipid droplets, which is how our cells store fat,” the researchers said in a press release. ​“When the fat is bro­ken down dur­ing exer­cis­ing or fast­ing, for exam­ple, is when the sig­nal­ing and ben­e­fi­cial effects are real­ized.”

“The effects we observed are due to monoun­sat­u­rated fatty acid (MUFA), which can come from other sources, but olive oil is the fat source most enriched in MUFA,” lead researcher Doug Mashek told Olive Oil Times.

The team found a process through which a pro­tein called SIRT1, or Sir­tuin 1, a spe­cific cel­lu­lar reg­u­la­tor asso­ci­ated with stress con­trol and longevity, is acti­vated.

“In mice, SIRT1 pro­motes char­ac­ter­is­tics rem­i­nis­cent of caloric restric­tion such as a decrease in the inci­dence of age-related dis­eases includ­ing dia­betes, car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­or­ders and neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive dis­eases,” the researchers said.

“This work does pro­vide new insights into how nutri­ents reg­u­late aging and we hope will lead to advances in drug devel­op­ment,” Mashek added. ​“How­ever, this work also high­lights the impor­tance of the inter­ac­tion between diet and fast­ing, or poten­tially exer­cise, as things that can work syn­er­gis­ti­cally to pro­mote healthy aging.”

Ear­lier stud­ies by the Min­nesota sci­en­tists high­lighted the ben­e­fi­cial effects of resver­a­trol — a com­pound found in red wine — includ­ing its effects on lifes­pan.

The next round of research at the Uni­ver­sity of Min­nesota will focus on the inner bio­log­i­cal mech­a­nisms behind their new dis­cov­ery to pave the way for new drugs or dietary reg­i­mens.

“We want to under­stand the biol­ogy, and then trans­late it to humans, hope­fully chang­ing the par­a­digm of health­care from some­one going to eight dif­fer­ent doc­tors to treat his or her eight dif­fer­ent dis­or­ders,” Mashek said. ​“These are all aging-related dis­eases, so let’s treat aging.”

 

Article reposted from: https://www.oliveoiltimes.com/health-news/how-fatty-acids-in-evoo-might-mitigate-age-related-diseases/80398