Only the first spin!
Olive oil will help the brain
Anna Govorova, Infox.ru
Scientists from Temple University (Philadelphia, USA) have discovered another important beneficial property of olive oil (but only first–pressed, or, as usually indicated on the label - extra-virgin), writes Infox. As it turned out, its daily presence in the diet protects the brain from the development of Alzheimer's disease, or senile dementia.
The scientists report on the results of their work in the latest issue of the journal Annals of Clinical and Translational Neurology (Lauretti et al., Extra-virgin olive oil ameliorates cognition and neuropathology of the 3xTg mice: role of autophagy).
Extra-class oil is not an advertisement. It just contains a lot more phenolic compounds than in more democratic varieties – VM.
As it turned out, such a familiar product triggers a very important biological process in cells – autophagy (self-eating). As a result, amyloid plaques and tau proteins are destroyed in the brain - toxic cellular debris, the accumulation of which is believed to lead to the development of Alzheimer's disease – impaired memory and mental abilities in the elderly.
There has been a lot of talk about the beneficial properties of olive oil for a long time. After all, it is one of the components of the Mediterranean diet, which is believed to reduce the risk of developing many different diseases – cardiovascular, oncological. For example, olive oil contains polyunsaturated fatty acids – and they help reduce the level of bad cholesterol in the blood.
The authors of the current study decided to find out how the use of olive oil affects the functioning of the brain. To do this, they created genetically modified mice with Alzheimer's disease. At least three markers of this disease could be detected in animals: their memory was impaired, and in the brain analysis showed the presence of amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles (they are formed by clusters of hyperphosphorylated tau proteins).
Six-month-old animals (before they could develop symptoms of the disease) were divided into two groups. One group received a balanced diet with enough olive oil. And the other – the same diet, but without olive oil. At the age of 9 to 12 months, the animals from the second group began to show symptoms of the disease. But the mice from the first group showed good results in tests for memory, spatial orientation and learning ability.
Having discovered such a pattern, scientists decided to find out what mechanism underlies it. And it turned out that fundamental biological processes are affected here.
"We found that the use of olive oil triggers the process of autophagy, which is just disrupted in Alzheimer's disease," says (in a press release Extra–Virgin Olive Oil Preserves Memory and Protects Brain Against Alzheimer's Disease, New Research at Temple Shows - VM) the head of the study, Professor Domenico Pratico.
Actually, autophagy is an important biological process, when unnecessary molecules, whole organelles are destroyed in cells, the cell can eat itself. It is known that many neurodegenerative diseases – Parkinson's, Huntington's and Alzheimer's diseases develop due to the inefficient operation of such intracellular cellular self-eating.
"Our experiment showed that in the brains of animals that had olive oil in their diet, the autophagy process worked well – due to this, amyloid plaques and tau proteins were effectively destroyed. Therefore, their memory worked better and in general the neurons were in good contact with each other. The symptoms of Alzheimer's disease were much less pronounced in them, compared to those animals that were deprived of olive oil," says Professor Pratico.
Now the authors want to find out how the "olive" diet will act on the body in the event that the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease have already manifested. That is, how effectively amyloid plaques and tau proteins will "self-eat".
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22.06.2017