An Olive is an Olive, is an Olive – Right?

Not according to a new study commissioned by Prevention magazine. They sent 22 brands and types of olive oil to a lab (SGS Control Services, Inc.). The lab checked the Olive oil for three nutrients: oleic acid, squalene, and linoleic acid.
The result : ta da da da--only the oil from the Mediterranean was high in cancer fighting nutrients.

According to the "Prevention" article, by Mike McGrath, most researchers have always thought that the reason for olive oils reputation for fighting cancer was because of the oleic acid. But olive oil contains linoleic acid a bad cancer-promoter. However in recent years, researchers have also found that olive oil contains squalene. Squalene has been shown to prevent colon and other cancers in animal studies.

All three of these acids are in varying amounts in different olive oils. The bad linoleic acid can be as high as 20% in any given olive oil. So if you did a study using an olive oil that was high in linoleic and low in oleic and squalene, your results would show that olive oil is not that good at fighting cancer. And that is just what has happened. So "Prevention" decided to do their own testing to see if these conflicting studies were a result of using different olive oils.

The results showed that the top ten brands of olive oil had the best ratio of oleic to linoleic acid, and are high in squalene. All of the top ten were extra virgin, cold pressed and were from Spain, Greece, or Italy except for one which was from California, and came in 9th. (No longer available). The number one olive oil was Eden Selected Spanish Extra Virgin.

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