Medicinal Properties of Olive Oil from the Curious Cook

One of my favorite food writers, Harold McGee, has done it again in his newest Curious Cook column in the New York Times. He describes an olive oil tasting, where the tasters often cough, due to an irritant in the oil. He particularly discusses the reaction of Dr. Gary Beauchamp, the director of the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia:

At the 1999 international workshop on molecular and physical gastronomy, in the mist-shrouded mountain town of Erice, Sicily, the physicists Ugo and Beatrice Palma brought along oil freshly pressed from their own trees. Dr. Beauchamp tasted the oil and felt his throat burn, as did I and all the other attendees. But he was the only one who immediately thought of ibuprofen.

Then McGee reports on some research about what causes people to cough, and how the chemical responsible may prove incredibly valuable. Here are the amazing results:

“The moment I felt that burn from Ugo and Beatrice’s oil, I saw the whole picture in my head....There’s a natural analogue of ibuprofen in olive oil, and it could have anti-inflammatory properties, too.”

He, Dr. Breslin and several collaborators confirmed that the pungent substance in olive oil is a phenolic chemical, which they named oleocanthal. And they showed that oleocanthal is even more effective than ibuprofen at inhibiting enzymes in the body that create inflammation. “It took five years of spare-time unfunded research to prove it, but that was some of the best fun I’ve had doing science,” he said.

In their 2005 report to the journal Nature, the team noted that anti-inflammatory drugs like aspirin and ibuprofen appear to have long-term health benefits, including reduction in the risk of some forms of heart disease and cancer. They suggested that the oleocanthal in pungent olive oils might be one of the things that make traditional Mediterranean diets so healthful.