Olive Oil is BAD for Us????? Opinions on Esselstyn

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Julie G
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Re: Olive Oil is BAD for Us????? Opinions on Esselstyn

Post by Julie G »

Eye-opening, Merouleau- thank YOU I found an online container company and ordered several 4 oz glass bottles (brown to prevent oxidation) to transport EVOO when traveling or eating at a restaurant. It allows me to always use the high polyphenol stuff and not have to rely on poorer quality oils- bad idea for ε4s.

Welcome apod! Great paper. Proof that polyphenols really DO matter. I'd love to see full-text.
My main point was the positive effect of EVOO. If it was as bad as Esselstyn says, he probably would have predicted a worsening of clinical outcomes in PREDIMED. There is no perfect study, and we need true peer review and watchdogs to keep the scientists honest, even vegan boosters like Ornish, but I maintain that PREDIMED supports the inclusion of EVOO in a healthy diet
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Well put, Richard.
The amount of it to use is clearly up for debate. I think including 50g/day of added oils, even EVOO, is pushing it as it can easily crowd out other potentially nutrient-dense foods from the diet.
I totally agree that the ideal amount is very much up for debate and will certainly vary by individual. FWIW, I've settled around 3 TBS a day. By eating a highly nutrient dense diet, I still meet (or greatly exceed) all nutrients per cron-o-meter tracking...with the exception of potassium. I'm often a little short there, but serum levels are good.
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Re: Olive Oil is BAD for Us????? Opinions on Esselstyn

Post by Gilgamesh »

Richard, sorry, didn't mean to pick nits, but it's worth emphasizing: the PREDIMED study is pretty seriously flawed. But I generally agree with you on EVOO! -- at least as far as my own consumption goes. But that's mostly because I just love the stuff, and it's a good tool for preventing my seemingly unstoppable weight loss.... I just wanted to flag one of the problems with the study (there are many -- the methods section doesn't even allow one to know how much olive oil was actually consumed). I'm in fact convinced neither by Esselstyn nor the PREDIMED results. With fats (well, with everything involving APOE, except, I think, the items in "Simple prev. steps" on the wiki), Socratic wisdom is the watchword, for me.

I was consuming 80 g of EVOO/day at one point. ("Can't drink booze, what do I put in this shot glass that's on the table during dinner -- that will be yummy and pretty??") I've now cut that in half, and am probably going to go much lower. I dug into the the research supporting EVOO a while back and was left with the impression that MUFAs might not be so good -- might, in fact, be a bit bad. "Eat olives!", as our Gene says, might be the best conclusion (or maybe -- though I haven't looked into this -- even olive leaf extract, esp. if you're worried about Na intake). Tightly controlled animal experiments with MUFAs and work with humans (epid'l or otherwise) have divergent results --

http://link.springer.com/article/10.100 ... 6-8#page-1

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2995267/

-- always a warning flag. So the vehicle for the good polyphenols may not be worth it. And that's not even taking into account APOE status. But I'd rather have a shot glass filled with EVOO than, say, corn or peanut oil.

Best,
GB
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Re: Olive Oil is BAD for Us????? Opinions on Esselstyn

Post by apod »

In the first study from 2008, I'd be curious to read the PUFA intake and detailed diets for the animals on the atherogenic SFA/MUFA diets as compared with the animals on the atheroprotective PUFA diet. Polyunsaturated fats are essential nutrients, where restricting the amount in the diet for a caged animal being fed unnatural foods deficient in key nutrients (like omega-3) with atherogenic amounts of cholesterol could possibly explain the poor health outcomes for the animals.

The second study from 2011 comes to the conclusion that increasing dietary PUFA "consistently appears to provide benefit".

Looking at this meta-analysis from 2013:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23386268
substituting dietary linoleic acid in place of saturated fats increased the rates of death from all causes, coronary heart disease, and cardiovascular disease. An updated meta-analysis of linoleic acid intervention trials showed no evidence of cardiovascular benefit.
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Re: Olive Oil is BAD for Us????? Opinions on Esselstyn

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Gilgamesh wrote:Richard, sorry, didn't mean to pick nits, but it's worth emphasizing: the PREDIMED study is pretty seriously flawed. But I generally agree with you on EVOO! -- at least as far as my own consumption goes. But that's mostly because I just love the stuff, and it's a good tool for preventing my seemingly unstoppable weight loss.... I just wanted to flag one of the problems with the study (there are many -- the methods section doesn't even allow one to know how much olive oil was actually consumed).
GB - I'm sure there are lots of different opinions on PREDIMED, don't worry about picking nits. I've been down enough rabbit holes to have dealt with plenty myself. As I read it, the "low fat" diet did not meet target, but from my reading of clinical nutrition trials, that is fairly standard for the low fat arms. For published nutrition trials, I've seen "low fat" diets reducing fat from a standard diet by a few percent (think 35-37% down to 30%). Ornish and the other ultra-low fat guys are the exception. On the flip side, a lot of LCHF boosters will nearly always complain about results from the "high fat" diet conditions because those typically are only a few percent higher than the standard diets. "They did not get the results I would expect because it clearly did not go far enough in raising (fill in your favorite macronutrient).

It is a challenge to find the observed intake because most of the 30+ papers based on PREDIMED reference the original paper. This is a common practice for follow-up papers to save space repeating methods that were previously published. The target was 50g EVOO for that arm of the study. I was impressed that the estimated intake was, in fact, very close to 50g/day.

I was consuming 80 g of EVOO/day at one point. ("Can't drink booze, what do I put in this shot glass that's on the table during dinner -- that will be yummy and pretty??") I've now cut that in half, and am probably going to go much lower. I dug into the the research supporting EVOO a while back and was left with the impression that MUFAs might not be so good -- might, in fact, be a bit bad. "Eat olives!", as our Gene says, might be the best conclusion (or maybe -- though I haven't looked into this -- even olive leaf extract, esp. if you're worried about Na intake). Tightly controlled animal experiments with MUFAs and work with humans (epid'l or otherwise) have divergent results --
80g/day of EVOO? How do you did that without disaster pants? ;) I remember reading a study directly comparing EVOO, refined olive oil and a control diet. The refined olive oil had the MUFA's but not the polyphenols and showed no benefit. When I read that and followed up with finding out the high polyphenol content of olives, I decided eating olives as a whole foods started to make a lot more sense than relying mainly on their oil.
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Re: Olive Oil is BAD for Us????? Opinions on Esselstyn

Post by Gilgamesh »

RichardS wrote:80g/day of EVOO? How do you did that without disaster pants? ;)
Ha ha! :lol: I wish I had had disaster pants when I read the above!

I always figured since fat delays stomach emptying the effect would be the opposite, but, come to think of it, my BM frequency has actually decreased to 1/day since I cut (way) back on olive oil.
RichardS wrote: I remember reading a study directly comparing EVOO, refined olive oil and a control diet. The refined olive oil had the MUFA's but not the polyphenols and showed no benefit. When I read that and followed up with finding out the high polyphenol content of olives, I decided eating olives as a whole foods started to make a lot more sense than relying mainly on their oil.
I think I read that same study. That got me looking into the "MUFAs are great" hypothesis -- examining, in particular, clinical outcomes instead of putative markers of health -- and is part of what is moving me back to a nearly Ornish perspective on fat. The problem for me with going back to low-fat is getting enough calories without bursting my gut (because of the bulk) or consuming foods with too high a glycemic load (low-fat, less bulk, but postprandial blood glucose surges...). And I've gone no-grain, so I'm really stuck.

GB
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Re: Olive Oil is BAD for Us????? Opinions on Esselstyn

Post by Julie G »

Richard, Gigamesh- please share the paper you're discussing. My guess is that we all could benefit.
The problem for me with going back to low-fat is getting enough calories without bursting my gut (because of the bulk) or consuming foods with too high a glycemic load (low-fat, less bulk, but postprandial blood glucose surges...). And I've gone no-grain, so I'm really stuck.
Ah, the proverbial glucose/lipid seesaw. Sigh; it IS a special conundrum for E4s. An Ornish type diet MAY be perfect for some here...but I just wanted to share a few cautions I recently stumbled across on Dr. Dayspring's site. He has a section for his "Favorites" from other health providers. This is one: Diets to Prevent Coronary Artery Disease 1957-2013: What have we learned? Numbers 3 & 4 might be helpful- especially for anyone NOT regularly checking advanced lipids:
http://www.lecturepad.org/index.php/com ... l-target-6
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Re: Olive Oil is BAD for Us????? Opinions on Esselstyn

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I'm not sure if this was the exact same study I was thinking of directly comparing EVOO and refined olive oil, but if not, it is pretty close.

Full text: http://jn.nutrition.org/content/129/12/2177.full
J. Nutr.-1999-Ramirez-Tortosa-2177-83.pdf
J Nutr. 1999 Dec;129(12):2177-83.
Extra-virgin olive oil increases the resistance of LDL to oxidation more than refined olive oil in free-living men with peripheral vascular disease.
Ramirez-Tortosa MC1, Urbano G, López-Jurado M, Nestares T, Gomez MC, Mir A, Ros E, Mataix J, Gil A.

Patients with peripheral vascular disease (Fontaine stage II) are characterized by ischemia of the lower extremities, atherosclerosis and alteration of blood coagulation and fibrinolysis. A randomized, two-period, crossover design was used to compare the effects of extra-virgin (VO) and refined olive (RO) oils on plasma lipids and lipoprotein composition and LDL oxidation susceptibility in free-living men with peripheral vascular disease. The oils differed in their antioxidant profile (alpha-tocopherol: 300 vs. 200 mg/kg; phenolic compounds 800 vs. 60) and concentration but not in their fatty acid composition. Subjects were randomly assigned to two groups. The first group (n = 12) received VO with which to freely cook all meals for 3 mo, followed by a 3-mo wash-out period; they then received RO for the final 3 mo. The second group (n = 12) consumed the oils in the opposite order. Energy, fat, polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) and alpha-tocopherol intakes were not different when patients consumed the two oils. Profiles of the major fatty acids in plasma and LDL were not different after consumption of VO and RO. The slope of the line for LDL oxidation vs. the line for copper concentration was significantly higher after the intake of RO than after the intake of VO. Total LDL taken up by macrophages was significantly greater when the men consumed RO rather than VO. We suggest that antioxidants present in VO may protect LDL against oxidation more than does RO in men with peripheral vascular disease.
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Re: Olive Oil is BAD for Us????? Opinions on Esselstyn

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Thank you, Richard. VERY telling. Polyphenols seem to matter...a lot. Has anyone ever found an EVOO with polyphenols at 800 :?: The one I'm using is in the high 400s, with an almost year old harvest date...so probably even less. I've found one in the 600s, but was too afraid of the bite to order without tasting. I may need to reconsider.
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Re: Olive Oil is BAD for Us????? Opinions on Esselstyn

Post by RichardS »

Juliegee wrote:Thank you, Richard. VERY telling. Polyphenols seem to matter...a lot. Has anyone ever found an EVOO with polyphenols at 800 :?: The one I'm using is in the high 400s, with an almost year old harvest date...so probably even less. I've found one in the 600s, but was too afraid of the bite to order without tasting. I may need to reconsider.
I went back to a link from OliveOilTimes http://www.oliveoiltimes.com/phenolic-c ... california but it seems to direct to a blank page. Last year I visited the page and found the following:

Trader Joes’s California Estate 1063mg/L (~0.9mg/g) (what I have used for years, nice but manageable bite to my taste)
Trader Joe’s Spanish 1250mg/L (~1.1mg/g)


However, some measures of polyphenols include only a subset of all those that can be measured, so it is hard to compare across testing sites.

Also note from a separate peer-reviewed study for which I don't have a link:
Green Olives: 161mg phenols/100g. 1 large Trader Joe's olive=9.5mg --> 13mg phenols/ea

Note that the referenced olive is about 15 calories for 13mg polyphenols while that much from TJ's Cal Estate would be 120 calories. The way I see it, those who want the benefits of the polyphenols but want to avoid the fat and/or calories may wish to focus on the whole food.
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Re: Olive Oil is BAD for Us????? Opinions on Esselstyn

Post by marthaNH »

I just came home from the store yesterday with a pound of delicious garlic-stuffed large green olives that were packed in EVOO (not a top end brand but not garbage, either). And they are very good.
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