Today we're going to talk about an ingredient that is not only delicious but can also be a hero for your circulation. We are going to talk about extra virgin olive oil. I'm going to talk about its relationship with circulation, with the heart, which can help.
I will also talk about the ideal amount that can be consumed per day and how you can use it to improve your health. I am Dr Alexandre Amato, vascular surgeon at Instituto Amato. I help people with circulation problems to understand their problem and improve their quality of life.
Firstly, I wanted to say that I almost don't even consider olive oil as just a food. It is almost like a medicine, it is so good and beneficial for our health. But just like any medicine, it can be bad in high quantities and it has to be in the ideal quantity.
Despite all the advances in modern medicine, cardiovascular diseases remain the leading cause of death in the Western world. This is where lifestyle habits, diet and everything we can do to improve and avoid these diseases of cardiovascular origin come into play. And here comes the role of the Mediterranean diet and especially extra virgin olive oil, extra virgin olive oil and the purest olive oil.
It has high acidity, rich in polyphenols and bioactive compounds and monounsaturated fat. It is a source of good fat, where we will find glycerol and fatty acids, and this connection between glycerol and fatty acid, which will give olive oil its not only functional but also sensory characteristics. The free fatty acid is the one that oxidizes.
So if it oxidizes. We have to protect the oil from this oxidation. How is this done?
This is done with opaque glasses, the dark glasses that protect the oil from light. Light will facilitate this oxidation. So, when looking for quality olive oil, one of the first things we need to look at is the bottle in which it is being stored and transported.
Extra virgin olive oil, the one with the most antioxidants, can be considered extra virgin when it has less than 0. 8% acidity. But when we are looking for quality, we have to look for below 0.
5. Now we have to remember that acidity is an indirect measure of the quality of the olive oil. It's almost a prerequisite.
So, if it doesn't have the right acidity, there's no point in looking at the other characteristics of the oil. It has already been reported in the medical literature that olive oil may have anti-inflammatory, vasodilating, antioxidant characteristics. There are even reports of antibacterials used to treat H.
Pylori. The video is not about that subject. We're going to talk about olive oil and circulation.
Olive oil, well, it can't have that oil taste, it has to have spiciness, it has to have fruitiness, it has to have bitterness, it has to have complexity, harmony, persistence. These are all characteristics that we can see even in wine tasters. And nowadays there are olive oil tasters with all these complex flavors to analyze.
And the more complex it is, the more polyphenols and the more beneficial it is for your health. Well, to understand the effect of olive oil. We have to understand what oxidative stress is, oxidative stress in our body, especially in cardiovascular disease.
And when we have a very large accumulation of reactive oxygen species, these reactive oxygen species are molecules that react a lot with the substances that are around them, oxidizing them. So we have our anti-oxidation mechanisms and the main super oxide says oxidized metals and catalysts and fur and others, these mechanisms will try to contain this oxidation or oxidation. It is part of our organism, we need it.
This is burning the fuel, which means the engine is running. The alternative is not to have the engine running. So we have to have this production of reactive species, of oxygen.
But we have to be able to clean our body of this pollution generated by the engine running and this oxidative stress will also reduce the supply of nitric oxide in the wall, in the vascular endothelium. In that first layer of cells that is responsible for vasodilation, for increasing the caliber of this artery, facilitating the progression of blood. Another aspect is that this endothelial dysfunction will increase platelet aggregation, that is, the platelets that are responsible for clotting in the event that a wound begins to bleed.
We have to stop bleeding. We make a stopper, a clot stopper that will cover it and stop bleeding. And platelets are responsible for this.
However, this endothelial dysfunction increases the formation of these clots that can obstruct the arteries and, in addition , activates leukocytes and inflammation in the arterial wall. And all of this is the initial event for the formation of atherosclerosis from the atherosclerosis plaque that ends up obstructing the arteries themselves, obstructs an artery in the heart, can lead to a heart attack if it obstructs a cerebral or carotid artery that carries blood to the brain, can If you have a stroke or block a distal artery in your limbs, you may have gangrene, ischemia or intermittent claudication. These are peripheral vascular diseases.
Now, large studies show that extra virgin olive oil is capable of reducing the incidence of cardiovascular disease, such as the heart attack and stroke that I mentioned there. What these studies show is that extra virgin olive oil helps reduce the oxidation of LDL, which is bad cholesterol. It also helps to reduce the expression of genes related to atherosclerosis, in a way that helps maintain vascular health, preventing or reducing damage to the endothelial wall and maintaining its function of both vasodilation and vasoconstriction, which is very important for the vascular function.
Chronic inflammation is also very present in atherosclerosis and is part of this entire pathophysiology. And olive oil has already been shown to be beneficial in reducing this inflammation. Extra virgin olive oil has anti-inflammatory and antioxidant substances that will reduce this risk, helping to regulate inflammation.
After all, inflammation can be good, but in the right amount. Acute inflammation is good inflammation. We need this to heal, to restore our body in the event of damage.
What we cannot have is chronic inflammation. And olive oil also helps control this oxidation and this oxidative stress so that olive oil helps regulate blood pressure. But not only that.
It also helps control cholesterol, blood glucose and other risk factors for atherosclerosis. So, what is the ideal amount of olive oil in a day for one person and half a tablespoon of olive oil? This gives about seven grams of olive oil.
Now we have to remember that olive oil is an oil and it is an oil that also contains energy, calories. These seven grams will have around 58, 60 calories, so we cannot exaggerate the quantity. Remembering that for a woman the average basal metabolic calorie expenditure just to survive is 1400 calories per day.
It would be 60, 58, 60 calories per hour. So this amount, this half tablespoon with seven grams of olive oil would be equivalent in energy at 01h00 of daily basal energy. So we have to be very careful as the olive oil is very good, we cannot overdo it.
He is good in this quantity and in this amount. It can reduce cardiovascular risk by around 10 to 15%. And obviously, we have to remember that this is a lifestyle habit.
Isn't this something where you drink olive oil today and you treated your atherosclerosis or your chronic inflammation and it's resolved? No. This has to be done daily, for long periods, so that this benefit can be measured and really make a difference in your life.
So you really have to enjoy it, you have to make it part of your daily habit as a normal, habitual thing that you no longer even realize you're doing and you're doing it. And it's obvious to remember that the quality of this oil is much more important than the quantity, because there's no point in increasing the quantity of oil that isn't good, that won't bring benefits, that doesn't have any. The quantity may be necessary, you will only increase the calories, the energy intake and it will not solve anything.
So, incorporating olive oil into your diet is a simple but effective way to control not only inflammation, but also oxidative stress, reducing the risk of cardiovascular diseases, helping to control lipids, blood glucose and is extremely beneficial then, for your health. If you liked our video, don't forget to subscribe and I'll post the next best video for you to watch.