Beneficial properties of olive oil

The Mediterranean diet is reputed to account for the lower incidence of coronary heart disease (CHD) in southern Europe. Olive oil is the principal source of fat in the Mediterranean diet, therefore the southern European diet contains more monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFA) and less saturated fatty acids (SFA), compared to the Northern European diet. Atherosclerosis and thrombosis are the two key pathophysiological processes which lead to the development of CHD. Therefore, the aim of the EU project entitled "The Beneficial Properties of Olive Oil" was to investigate how olive oil mediated its protective effect against CHD. The project had two parts, phase I involved a cross-cultural comparison to investigate the effect of a habitual southern European diet which is rich in olive oil compared to the northern european diet which contains little or no olive oil on a range of CHD risk factors. In phase II, a dietary intervention study was designed to substitute dietary SFA with MUFA, derived from olive oil, in the usual diet of free-living northern European men to investigate if this dietary change affected indices of CHD risk. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.