Share this to:

Support & Insight for the Autumn of Life

Olive Oil May Help Prevent Age-Related Diseases

DIET & RESEARCH: Researchers have found that olive oil in the Mediterranean diet may hold the key to mitigating aging-related diseases — but the Mediterranean lifestyle helps even more. Find out how.


Researchers at the University of Minnesota Medical School have discovered a potential new way in which diet influences aging-related diseases.

Doug Mashek, PhD, a professor in the Departments of Medicine and Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biophysics, leads a team of researchers who discovered that olive oil in the Mediterranean diet may hold the key to improving lifespan and mitigating aging-related diseases. Over the last eight years, with the help of multiple grants from the National Institutes of Health, their research findings were recently published in Molecular Cell.

Early studies on the diet suggested red wine was a major contributor to the health benefits of the Mediterranean diet because it contains a compound called resveratrol, which activated a certain pathway in cells known to increase lifespan and prevent aging-related diseases. However, work in Mashek’s lab suggests that it is the fat in olive oil, another component of the Mediterranean diet, that is actually activating this pathway.

The lifestyle helps even more

According to Mashek, merely consuming olive oil is not enough to elicit all of the health benefits. His team’s studies suggest that when coupled with fasting, limiting caloric intake and exercising, the effects of consuming olive oil will be most pronounced.

“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. And then, when the fat is broken down during exercising or fasting, for example, is when the signaling and beneficial effects are realized,” Mashek said.

The next steps for their research are to translate it to humans with the goal of discovering new drugs or to further tailor dietary regimens that improve health, both short-term and long-term.

“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.”

SOURCE:

REFERENCE:

  • Charles P. Najt, Salmaan A. Khan, Timothy D. Heden, Bruce A. Witthuhn, Minervo Perez, Jason L. Heier, Linnea E. Mead, Mallory P. Franklin, Kenneth K. Karanja, Mark J. Graham, Mara T. Mashek, David A. Bernlohr, Laurie Parker, Lisa S. Chow, Douglas G. Mashek. Lipid Droplet-Derived Monounsaturated Fatty Acids Traffic via PLIN5 to Allosterically Activate SIRT1. Molecular Cell, 2020; 77 (4): 810 DOI: 10.1016/j.molcel.2019.12.003
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
B. Berger

B. Berger

Visit Our Pages On:

Welcome

This site was inspired by my Mom’s autoimmune dementia.

It is a place where we separate out the wheat from the chaffe, the important articles & videos from each week’s river of news. With a new post on Alzheimer’s or dementia appearing on the internet every 7 minutes, the site’s focus on the best information has been a help to many over the past 15 years. Thanks to our many subscribers for your supportive feedback.

The site is dedicated to all those preserving the dignity of the community of people living with dementia.

Peter Berger, Editor

Related

131110-drst.jpeg
CTE Dementia: Tony Dorsett's Story
Are concussions a given part of playing hard? Watch legend Tony Dorsett share his news and tell his story.
black framed eyeglasses on blue bedsheet
Suvorexant Reduces Alzheimer's Tau & Amyloid Beta
Researchers find that people with dementia who received the drug suvorexant showed a drop in tau and amyloid beta. Th...
woman%2Bon%2Ba%2Bbike%2B-%2BMabel%2BAmber%2B-%2BPixabay.jpeg
Vascular Dementia Prescription: Sit Less, Move More
Researchers say a lifestyle-only treatment which includes increased physical activity may be the best prescription fo...

Books

Amazon Books
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x
News to Get at the Truth

Subscribe To Our Weekly Newsletter

Enjoy thought-provoking videos & articles
News to Get at the Truth

Subscribe To Our Weekly Newsletter