Mary Flynn, Brown University (USA): “There is no food or medicine like extra virgin olive oil”

In 2013, Flynn founded the Olive Oil Health Initiative at Brown University’s Miriam Hospital, an initiative designed to obtain funding to support cooking programs developed for low-income populations. “I incorporated olive oil into recipes for these programs and used funds from the initiative to print nutrition booklets and cookbooks that I developed for the program,” she explains.

Throughout my professional career as an educator and researcher on the benefits of EVOO, “I always say there is no food or medicine like extra virgin olive oil. Eating about two tablespoons of this food per day improves a list of risk factors for chronic diseases and is also linked to reduced risk of heart disease and several types of cancer. The need to reduce body weight and its effect on reducing weight gain over time is not mentioned,” he highlighted.

In this sense, Flynn recommends the daily consumption of at least two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil (about 30 ml). “I encourage everyone to use it to cook their vegetables, because the human body needs fat to absorb and EVOO is a fat that protects against cancer. Also, the taste of the vegetables will also be better.”

Regarding American consumers’ perception of this product, the researcher explains that among the people she advises on nutrition, as well as among her graduate and medical students, “there is a greater awareness that extra virgin olive oil Have a healthy meal”.

“I always present the latest studies that prove the health benefits of extra virgin olive oil, because my students are very interested in learning about them, and I can proudly confirm that as long as I have learned about them Most of them had no idea about these benefits. “I showed them,” he added.

Flynn is currently conducting a pilot study comparing plant-based diets (plant based diet) and olive oil with ketogenic diet in men with prostate cancer, overweight or obesity. “The study started last year and we are halfway through, so we hope to complete it in 2024.”

Regarding whether she believes that there are shortcomings in research related to this field worldwide, the expert assures that there is: “I will start a study in early 2023 on the effects of extra virgin olive oil on clinical risk factors and I was surprised to find that, for example, there are no studies on type 2 diabetic patients that analyze improvements in blood sugar with daily consumption of olive oil. Yes, but there are studies in people without type 2 diabetes that show that extra virgin olive oil lowers blood glucose and improves insulin sensitivity.

For Flynn, funding is one of the main challenges of olive oil-related research. In his case, he assured that he had been funding his research for the past decade “on a small scale, mainly for minimal laboratory tests, with a small number of participants and very little salary support”. “I do not have the funds that could be used to conduct additional trials with larger numbers of participants, or to hire anyone to help me complete the research.”