Episode 34: Oilve Oil: Secret to Mom Health?

Extra Virgin Olive Oil Scientific Article

Welcome to the Beauty of Better Podcast, where we help moms thrive in health and faith.

Hey, mamas, we're excited to talk to you guys today.

We're gonna be going through an article and kind of dissecting a nutrition food item for you.

So we're gonna be talking about Extra Virgin olive oil and kind of its impact on cardiovascular outcomes.

We're gonna kind of break down, like actually dissect it and try to make what might feel complicated a little bit more simple, and also kind of give you a highlight reel and practical applications to that.

This is something we are really passionate about, is just having science inform our decisions and form kind of some of our choices, but it's good to be aware of what great articles are and what the limitations are.

So we're going to kind of talk you through a couple of those things today.

But yeah, the main focus is going to be just on this one article, which we will also link in the platform that you're tuning in on.

So thank you, Kristiana.

I just want to speak in to real quick, just our heart behind explaining these articles.

Maybe it might seem a little bit like above your head or you're like, why are we going into this?

But our heart is to educate and to simplify things so that there can be a lot of complexity when it comes to nutrition advice.

You're bombarded with things on social media and you're like, what's true?

What do I take from that?

Maybe also you have this perspective that like, can science be trusted?

And so we just wanted to just have this conversation to just help show you the scientific process.

Yes, there's limitations to it, but that's the beauty of science is that it works towards minimizing those limitations.

And we're all believers, we're followers of Christ, but yet we love how science is a way to explore God, to understand his creation, how he reveals his truth in that creation.

And so we just want to go on this journey with you as we just delve into these articles and help bring some understanding behind things.

Also that we would empower you so that in your choices for your life, and with your family, you can be empowered in making the choices that will bring health to you and taking those little steps of becoming better.

So that's our heart today.

But Danielle, you wanted to maybe jump into the article a little bit?

Yeah, I'll dive into just like what it's called, where it is, all of that.

So I'm just going to go through the basics, and we won't do this with every article we dissect, but this is more of a learning episode of how do you find a good article?

How do you understand what should be there, what shouldn't be there?

And so today, we're looking at one called Extra Virgin Olive Oil, and it's looking at additional cardiovascular outcomes at the trial, and it's found in the American Heart Journal.

So that's a peer-reviewed journal, so we know that right off the bat, that this article has gone through a blind review process, which means specialists in the field have gone through the methodology, the results, the outcomes, the implications, all of that, and vetted it, and didn't know who wrote it, and still said, this is a great article to learn from.

It just came out, it's brand new.

It came out September 2025.

So that's exciting, because it means it's really up to date.

And it does say that it's pre-proof.

And just what that means is that it's been accepted, and it's been made available online, so that we can read it now, and not have to wait for a hard copy print to come out.

Hey, Danielle, can I jump in and ask a quick question?

Sure.

Okay, so if a mom is listening right now, and she's thinking, okay, you said that this is a peer-reviewed journal, how would she know that an article that maybe she's reading on PubMed, or an article that maybe somebody linked on social media is in a peer-reviewed journal or not?

Yes, so you can look up the National Institute of Health.

They have an index.

You can look on PubMed, too, where they actually show you these are valid peer-reviewed journals or not.

And so that's a good starting place for that.

And then even as you search for articles, there are filters that you can use that say like, oh, this is a review article, this is a research article, this is an editorial, this is a commentary.

And so always select research article, and that will most likely give you a peer-reviewed research article.

And then you could always look at the journal itself, like you could click on the link to go see the American Heart Journal and see their process.

You can look at the editorial process, you can look at the review process for authors.

So yeah, that's just a basic way to start.

Yeah, good question.

The next thing I wanted to point out about this article is there's a long list of authors.

Not that you have to have a long list of authors, but you can look up their backgrounds, you can look up the Institute, Research Institute, University, Hospital, whatever they're associated with is listed, so that you know that they're professionals in the field and that they have the credentials to be able to research.

And I always, I'm weary of articles that just have one author.

And usually those are review articles, dot research articles, because if you're actually conducting research, invalid research, you usually need a team.

Especially if it's a substantial study and you're trying to learn something significant, there should be more than one author.

So if it's just like a one, maybe two author article, I would just look at what is their background and why aren't there more people helping with this.

So that's just something else to note.

There's a number of authors listed here from universities and hospitals.

And then I'll just jump in to the basics of what they studied, and then we can all look at the highlights together.

But really, this study looked at over 7,000 people who were high risk for heart disease.

And it was 7,102 people, which is a very significant number.

If you get over, I would say, a couple hundred people in a study, that's significant.

It's really hard to actually research large numbers of people and gather data and then follow up.

And this study actually followed up, which is even more significant.

So they started with over 7,000 people.

They were ages 50 to 80, so people at high risk for heart disease.

And at the time of the study, it's important to note that they were all free of heart disease.

So that's one of the things they were monitoring as they went on with this study, is they wanted to see what does heart disease look like with olive oil consumption.

Then, they followed these participants for 4.7 years.

So, I don't know if you...

Incredible.

Yes, like to follow somebody for 4.7 years, like over for almost 5 years, is so significant.

It's really hard to do.

Retention is hard.

All of that is just very, very difficult.

So, they're sample size, incredible.

The amount of time they walked with people to actually look for outcomes, more incredible.

So, I just feel like this is a wealth of information with their results.

Something else I wanted to note just before we get into the results is something that's in...

It's the last sentence in the methods section at the beginning of the article.

And it says that models were adjusted for major confounders.

And what that really means and why that sentence stands out to me is so important is when you're researching something, what you're trying to do is in the scientific process, you're trying to control the noise.

You're trying to control things that might influence your outcomes that aren't related.

And so what this tells us right here is that these researchers were aware of the noise that could influence their study.

And they...

there are statistical ways that you can remove the noise and just focus on olive oil, heart disease, and what their outcomes were.

So the fact that they accounted for that and noted that in this article is very significant as well.

I don't know if anybody wants to jump in.

Yeah, I was just going to say, like...

So when you're looking at these peer-reviewed articles that have so many of the control levels and lots of different data points and years, this is something that invested several hundreds and hundreds of hours for each author individually to commit to.

And so when we're making conclusions about how does extra virgin olive oil impact cardiovascular health, well, people who've studied it, who are experts in the field, like we want to be trusting their voice in terms of the choices that we make to consume, we're not consume certain products, as we see things that have, like we said, smaller sample size or maybe not as long, we'll help walk you guys through some of that stuff.

But this is a really strong article that we can make strong conclusions.

And Danielle's been using that word valid.

So just as a reminder again, guys, that means this is going to be truthful.

Like we are human beings created by our Lord and Savior, and our physiology works a certain way.

Some of that's a mystery, some of that can be unpacked through science.

And so when you see this investment by several researchers, like that's something to definitely draw your eyes to.

So it gets me excited.

Me too, I mean, it really makes me feel so thankful that people would sacrifice that much time and effort and brain power and in a team setting to actually dissect like, oh, how much olive oil should we actually have?

And what does it actually do for our bodies?

And how do we know?

And how do we prove that?

So I feel like I commend these authors and researchers because that is a significant amount of time to commit to a study.

So I don't know if somebody wants to go through the highlights of what they found with this, following these 7,000 people for almost five years and starting with a baseline of no heart disease.

Yeah, I can hit the highlights.

So starting with the first one, so they have four that are listed here right at the beginning of the article.

And the first one says, high cumulative EVU, which is extra virgin olive oil acronym, intake of over 40 grams a day, reduce major cardiovascular disease risk.

So that's important because they are basically able to tell us how much we need per day in order to reduce the risk of disease, which is a really practical thing.

Like if we know, oh, okay, 40 grams a day, we'll talk about some ways that we can get 40 grams a day after we finish dissecting the article, but that's really helpful to know.

And if you don't know how much 40 grams is, a really easy way to measure that would be like, get a little food scale and dump it in a bowl and see how many grams it is.

But the second highlight that it talks about in this article is that extra virgin olive oil lowered the risk of stroke, peripheral artery disease, and atrial fibrillation, which all of those sound bad, and they are not good things, right?

Stroke, artery disease, atrial fibrillation, those are all heart conditions.

So we know that extra virgin olive oil is really affecting the function of the heart, and it's helping improve that, which is great.

The third one is that common olive oil showed weaker associations compared to extra virgin olive oil, and that's helpful because when you're shopping for olive oil, sometimes it'll just say olive oil, and sometimes it'll say extra virgin olive oil, and if there was a weaker association of something, that means that that variable was not influencing the outcome as strongly as this one was.

So that means that we're looking at the extra virgin olive oil did a better job when they were looking at that piece than just regular olive oil.

So that's again, something that's very simple for you to do just by the extra virgin versus the regular standardized olive oil.

And then the fourth highlight is that the intake was evaluated with yearly repeated measures over 4.7 years of follow-up, which Danielle already mentioned.

And that is just huge.

I mean, repeated measures, like testing to see if it was still effective over and over over this long period of time.

That's really excellent for practical applications.

So the amount of good information that you can get out of this study based on the methods that they used and based on the high sample size that they had and the amount of time that was used to assess the participants.

And all of these things just make it a really solid study.

So we know when we look at the highlights that we can take these and then go and apply them because there's just some really practical pieces of information that we find.

So yeah, I don't know if anybody has anything else they want to add to that.

I'll just jump in here.

So I love that it's cardiovascular outcomes.

It isn't just a singular outcome.

So the fact that they looked at peripheral heart disease, heart failure, atrial fibrillation, like those are just some of the things that couldn't impact just being able to live and longevity, right?

I know different families have risk factors, maybe genetic, that might predispose you to have higher risk of cardiovascular disease.

I know that that runs on my side, and that's what motivated one of the motivators that I got in the field, and just love preventive medicine, and being able to study that, like thinking stroke, cardiovascular death, myocardial infarction, like let's reduce those risks.

And this is a small, simple step, like we said, that Beauty of Better, we're all about these manageable, tiny steps.

And this is just one food item that impacts so many things for our heart health.

And we know that nutrition ties to longevity.

We know exercise does too, but like these are daily choices we have to make.

So if we can make one small choice to, you know, pick up extra version of olive oil and incorporate that our diet.

And if that makes the dramatic effect when we can't affect our genetics, like, you know, that gets me excited that, you know, there's things that are within our control and outside of our control.

So that's what I love about science is learning like, okay, so what choices can I make that are kind of informed decisions that can decrease my risk?

It can eliminate risk.

And I think that's important to recognize here that it says reduced risk, right?

Not elimination of risk.

Because there are confounding variables, which they controlled for, that could put you at higher risk.

So, yeah, that could be a potential limitation.

And it's like, that you're thinking like, oh, well, this is gonna be my cure-all.

Just get this.

This is gonna fix all my risk factors.

But there are other things that do tie into risk factors of cardiovascular disease.

But it gets me excited when I can see the impact of one food item affecting so many cardiovascular outcomes.

Well, that's the thing I appreciate about nutritional sciences.

It helps kind of keep you within these parameters.

And as the Bible speaks about being blown and tossed by every new wave of teaching, you know, it helps ground us.

That's something I've really appreciated, that I'm not an extremist in any way.

I think sometimes when people hear, you know, I studied nutrition, they're like, oh, well, you know, I do this and do this, and they'll name these really extreme things.

I'm like, well, there's actually not research on that.

So no, I haven't done the month-long celebrators diet.

You may think that that's healthy or something, but that's the importance that this can help bring some grounding, you know, and it can help just be like just guidelines for us too.

And I think the exciting thing too is like studying extra virgin olive oil, like God first gave us the plants, and then he added unto that all the animals of the, you know, of the earth.

And so studying, like why did God give us these plants to eat?

Like there is amazing stuff in them.

And so that's where it's exciting to see, you know, the polyphenols, like there's higher polyphenols in extra virgin olive oil than there is in the common olive oil.

And so just understanding that, this goodness that God has put in his creation, and we get to learn about it.

So I think I just want to encourage moms to like, look at this, not as like this overwhelming, ah, I have so much to read now, but as like this exploration of God's goodness.

And that like, you know, as we discover these things, we get to work on these little steps of becoming better.

Just this week, actually, you know, my oldest daughter, she found, I have this cookbook called The Sneaky Chef.

And so we made these brownies that had blueberry puree and spinach puree mixed into them.

But I think my spinach was a little almost like going off.

I tried it, but anyway, she's like all on board with like wanting to try and like incorporate more fruits and vegetables in, especially for her little brothers who can be picky.

And so, you know, it's finding these little ways of like increasing our nutrient content and, you know, not putting all the pressure on yourself, on the world to be all the things.

But yet, taking these studies and saying, okay, how can I starting tomorrow, incorporate a little bit of extra virgin olive oil, especially if you have a family history of cardiovascular disease.

It's like this is something to empower you.

Like it's exciting.

It's like, Lord, thank you that you are the healer, and you give us healing food.

So I just wanted to share that.

I love that, Kathleen.

That's a great perspective and such a good reminder.

I think something else that I was thinking of while you were talking was just the importance of pursuing truth and how sometimes it's not convenient.

And we live in a society of convenience, and especially with all of the information that we have easily accessible at our fingertips, sifting through that can be challenging.

And a lot of times, it would seem easier just to take someone's word for it, that you follow on Instagram or TikTok, and you like them, and you think that they're cool.

And so anything that they post is now gospel truth.

But what I think what we're trying to encourage you to do at Beauty of Better is to really pursue truth.

And doing that is not always convenient, and it's not always just, oh, the click of a button, or this looks like a quick fix that I could do right now that somebody else said was good.

But actually, I mean, you could probably look up an article if somebody's saying, oh, this article said this.

Like just copy and paste the title and the authors, and go search it yourself, and take the time just to look at these things that we're talking about today, because you can really empower yourself to make informed decisions that way.

And you can actually know, is this something that's worth my time or not?

And I think it's always shocking to me how people will just believe almost anything anyone says now without taking the time just to vet it, because we can get information anywhere.

It is so easily accessible.

So, I would say, use that to your advantage.

Like, most of these articles, well, some you can access, some are open access, some are not, some are closed.

You have to be a member of something to get access to that.

But if you can access the article, go look at it.

And if you're, you know, the whole reason why we're doing this today is so that we can help empower you to kind of have an idea of what you're looking for and what you're looking at so that you feel empowered and qualified to go really figure it out.

Like, find out if it's actually worth your time to try it or not before just saying yes.

I even wonder if we could set up something on our website where, mamas, if you find an article and you don't have access to it, we are researchers and we probably do have access to it.

So you could maybe submit it somewhere on our website.

So we'll look into that just because we do want you to have evidence based research at your fingertips so that you can make informed decisions through this process of learning and nutrition.

I did want to jump in with a couple definitions that we've mentioned here.

So polyphenols, which Kathleen mentioned, those are just nutrients for your bodies.

They actually are antioxidants and anti-inflammatory.

So when you're having foods that have polyphenols, you're really looking at protection for your body and low inflammation.

And obviously, inflammation is associated with cardiovascular disease, so lower inflammation is better.

And then we mentioned 40 grams of extra virgin olive oil.

And what that equates to is approximately just over two and a half tablespoons.

So just so you know, like when you're in your kitchen, like trying to cook, that's approximately what it is.

So it's not even that much.

I would just also caution us to just, as Kelsey was saying, not take this as like extra virgin olive oil is going to be our savior, and we need to just drink that and not do anything else, and it's going to be our fix all.

Like that's why there's dosages.

And again, like consult with your physician about everything.

Like these are just tips and research, but everybody's unique, and your physician knows what you need best.

So take what you're learning with food and nutrients and use that in with what your physician suggests that you do as well, and what your own personal health is.

But I just wondered if we wanted to jump in with practical tips on how to incorporate extra virgin olive oil.

I know that when I think of two and a half tablespoons, it's like, oh, that's a salad.

Like you can mix that with a little balsamic vinegar and put it over some vegetables, and that's a super easy way to get it without even having to cook it, which I would suggest having it in its raw form and not cooking it.

But yeah, I don't know what you guys, how you use...

Sometimes we'll do it like with a sandwich.

So like our family doesn't particularly like mayonnaise.

But if you want like a little bit, like for example, into tuna, not sardines, Kathleen, but tuna, you know, I know we haven't stepped into that, maybe someday, but tuna.

And then, you know, a lot of times, you know, I'll do like a tuna sandwich, like an open-faced tuna sandwich or something with tuna.

But instead of using that, we'll mix with olive oil.

Sometimes we mix it with hummus, but a combination of those things.

So we can drizzle it on a sandwich instead of maybe using a different spread.

Hummus is a great one too.

Like, I love making hummus, I don't make it enough, but yeah, putting it in hummus.

Yeah, I was just going to say use it as like a dip too, if you want to mix it with spices or something like that.

Or for cooking purposes, just if it's like a lower or medium type of heat versus like a high heat, that would be a better choice for extra virgin olive oil just because of what happens to the oil when it's heated up.

But yeah, I think using it as a dip could be delicious.

We do that a lot, so.

I just have a go-to salad dressing recipe that I make a big batch of because I've never really liked store-bought dressings.

And so I just make them at home and it's actually really easy.

And when I lived in the UK, they didn't have ranch dressing over there.

I didn't actually use extra virgin olive oil in that recipe, but a friend from America showed me how to make homemade ranch dressing.

And I'm forever grateful because it's way better than store-bought stuff.

So, but anyway, I might post that little.

Yeah, Kathleen, you need to post that.

I might go to salad dressing recipe because yeah, it's really good.

It's got garlic, apple cider vinegar, it's got some yummy stuff and that's good for you.

That's awesome.

So maybe this week-

Hummus recipe too.

Yeah.

Maybe this week we can post more recipes just on what we use in our homes, whether it's hummus, dips, salad dressings, just to encourage you mamas in taking a next step to incorporating a little more extra virgin olive oil into your weekly routines with food.

And we're looking forward to these episodes.

Just as we look at the nutrients our body needs, and what we can get from food, and how much we need, and what do we do when we can't get it from food.

And just really the important pieces that our bodies need to function, but also to promote health so that we can live longer and have a higher quality of life to be around for our kids and our families and really accomplish all that God has for us.

So we hope this blessed you today, and we look forward to walking through science and nutrition with you over the next few months.

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