The Olive Oil Paradox: More fat, less midlife weight gain?

A new study answers whether olive oil can help stave off midlife weight gain

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This week’s Eating and Feeding Update challenges long held beliefs that fats promote weight gain.

Decades of public health messaging to eat low fat have backfired, shifting diets towards carbohydrates and empty calories while expanding the girth of Americans. Many are already battling those unshakeable pounds that accumulate from their 40’s and 50’s onward. The overweight have tipped the scales toward earlier age of diagnoses of obesity-driven diseases. People in their 30’s to 50’s are confronting news from their doctors that they suffer from Type 2 diabetes, cancer, and heart disease decades before the generations who came before them.

It’s a problem that loosening our belts alone won’t solve. We’ve been told a Mediterranean-style diet, one rich in fresh produce, greens, whole grains, fish, and meat only occasionally promotes health.

But, it’s a Mediterranean paradox…much of the diet centers on free-flowing olive oil. A friend in Italy told me that no man worth his salt purchases olive oil…each household produces their own from an ancient backyard grove of trees sustaining generation to generation. That’s a high-fat diet rich in fresh-pressed liquid gold, yet, the Mediterranean diet is synonymous with health.

What happens when middle aged men and women eating Western-style diets are advised to eat “good fats” without restricting the amount? How does consuming more calories from “good fats” affect mid-life weight gain?

Spain’s PREvención con DIeta MEDiterránea (PREDIMED) trial, the largest randomized trial ever conducted in Europe, helps to answer this question along with a study from the Harvard School of Public Health released February 18th.

In Spain’s PREDIMED study, the results surprisingly showed men and women didn’t gain weight whether they were told to eat a lower fat Mediterranean-style diet or one high in “good fats.” Their “good fats” mostly came from non-animal sources, extra-virgin olive oil, the mainstay of the Mediterranean diet, or nuts, both high in polyphenols, powerful plant compounds that have anti-inflammatory properties.

Not only did their waistlines fail to expand, but the trial was halted early because the olive oil and nut supplements given to participants appeared to play a role in heart disease prevention. Higher fat diets reduced serious cardiac events by 30% over the 5 years of intervention.

“After being told for 40 years that if you eat fat you’ll get fat, and it will clog up your arteries, people are afraid of that,” observed Dr. David Ludwig, Professor and Director of the New Balance Foundation Obesity Prevention Center at Harvard Medical School. “There’s no scientific basis for that, and in fact, the opposite is true.”

What’s coming to light is that fat quality matters; not all fat is equal

A new study drawing on three powerful prospective databases here in the United States confirms that olive oil when used as a primary fat seems to reduce weight gain over time.

What makes the study reliable or highly powered is that it draws on three very large data sets following healthy folks aged 65 years or younger over 20-24 years. Participants from the Nurses’ Health Study I and II and the Health Professional’s Follow-up Study reported the types of fats, oils, and brands of oils used for cooking, making salad dressings, and baking at home every four years. The analysis found that more calories consumed from olive oil over the two decades of follow up associated with lower body weight, especially in those already overweight, while calories consumed from other other vegetable and animal fats correlated with greater weight gains. Use of vegetable oils including corn, safflower, soybean, and canola oils as well as butter or margarine was more likely to drive up weight.

Not only does swapping olive oil for other fats and seed oils seem to curtail overall weight gain even when caloric intake increases, olive oil use also seems to rein in increasing midlines, or what doctors term ”central adiposity”, the belly fat accumulation or pear-shape that is a sign of insulin resistance.

Olive oil appears to be a “privileged” oil playing a role by regulating metabolic processes favoring stable weight.

The unusually high content of monounsaturated fats (MUFAs), particularly oleic acid, and more than 200 additional compounds in olive oil appear responsible for its gifts.

• Oleic acid may increase metabolism through thermogenesis and enhanced feelings of fullness

• In some studies, MUFA from plant sources have been shown to be beneficial where MUFAs from animal sources have been suggested to be detrimental

• Among the additional bioactive compounds in olive oil: flavonoids, phenols, organic acids, lignans, and Vitamin E

We think of plant polyphenols as free radical scavengers fighting oxidation and inflammation in the body, but they are coming to light as having more direct roles in regulating insulin and metabolism. Epigenetics or gene regulation, vascular tone, and maintaining healthy gut flora may all be how polyphenols work their magic. That may be an explanation why olive oil lowers the risk of heart disease even though it isn’t associated with improved cholesterol or blood lipid profiles; bioactive factors have been shown to reduce blood clotting and impaired vascular reactivity or atherogenesis promoting heart health.

The findings suggest that one solution to America’s obesity problem and rising chronic illnesses is to help consumers eat with intention by swapping plant-derived “good fats” for the saturated fats in red and processed meats and dairy.

“good fats” can be found in

• olive oil

• tree nuts

• avocados and avocado oil

• fatty fish like salmon

Choose olive oil and plant oils rich in unsaturated fats as your everyday cooking and food prep oils. Use animal-derived fats like butter in small amounts to add richness to your dishes or luxury as you “finish” with sauces and glazes.

A few culinary tips:

Olive oil, walnut, rapeseed (canola,) and avocado oil are rich sources of mono- and polyunsaturated fats. Avocado oil has a higher smoke point compared to olive oil and can also be used when sautéing or stir frying. Less data is available on the health properties of avocado oil compared to olive oil. When purchasing seed oils, choose cold expeller pressed over heat-extracted oils to avoid hexanes and processing impurities.

Animal fat, dairy fat and coconut oil contain primarily saturated fats. Coconut oil is comprised of 80-90% saturated fat (why it is solid at room temperature) and medium-chain triglycerides (MCT); coconut oil is regarded as healthier than animal fats, but inferior to plant poly and monounsaturated oils based on limited research. It should be used in moderation to add richness to dishes, but not as an every day oil.

Extra virgin olive oil is richer in anti-inflammatory plant polyphenol and bioactive compound content than refined olive oils; they are not equivalent

Eating polyunsaturated fats in salad dressings and monounsaturated fats helps with absorption of carotenoids by the body; that avocado with your tomato helps absorb lutein and xanthin. Enjoy olive oil in your salads and vegetable sheet pan roasts.

Looking for inspiration for olive oil-rich dishes? Perhaps you’d like

Nonna’s Creamy No-Cream Broccoli Pasta,

or Portuguese Garlic Shrimp with Kale,

or Greek Bruschetta

or Fennel, Orange, Onion, Cucumber and Olive Salad,

or Spaghetti Squash with Garlic, Olive oil, and , Crumbs

or Melty, Creamy Tahini and Garlic Cauliflower

You’ll find lots of additional recipes for inspiration at www.ellenkornmehlmd.com and in the Eating and Feeding Archive. Follow @mdwritesrecipes on Instagram to see what I’m cooking.

I’m on a mission to promote your health through nutritional literacy and to inspire young families, empty nesters, and busy people to cook more at home…share Eating and Feeding with someone you love! Interested in a topic? please send me a message. I’d love to hear from you- like the post and tell me what you plan to cook tonight in comments.

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