Olive oil May Hinder Cancer Process

People who use plenty of olive oil in their diets may be helping to prevent damage to body cells that can eventually lead to cancer, new research suggests. ADVERTISEMENT

In a study of 182 European men, researchers found evidence that olive oil can reduce oxidative damage to cells' genetic material, a process that can initiate cancer development.

They say the findings may help explain why rates of several cancers are higher in Northern Europe than in Southern Europe, where olive oil is a dietary staple.

They also support advice to replace saturated fats from foods like meat and butter with vegetable fats, particularly olive oil, said study co-author Dr. Henrik E. Poulsen, of Copenhagen University Hospital in Denmark.

He and his colleagues report the findings in The FASEB Journal, a publication of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology.

The study included healthy men between the ages of 20 and 60 from five European countries. For two weeks, the men consumed a quarter cup of olive oil throughout each day. At the end of the study, they showed an average 13 percent reduction in a substance called 8oxodG, which is a marker of oxidative damage to cells' DNA.

Such damage occurs when byproducts of metabolism called reactive oxygen species overwhelm the body's antioxidant defenses. Olive oil contains a number of compounds, called phenols, believed to act as powerful antioxidants.

However, those compounds didn't seem to account for the drop in DNA oxidative damage, according to Poulsen's team. The men in the study used three different olive oils with varying levels of antioxidant phenols, and oxidative damage declined regardless of the phenol content.

Instead, the researchers suspect that the monounsaturated fats in olive oil are behind the effect.

The findings, they say, suggest that olive oil may be part of the reason that certain cancers, including breast, colon, ovarian and prostate cancers, are less common in Mediterranean countries than in Northern Europe.

At the beginning of the study, men from Northern Europe had higher levels of 8oxodG than those from Southern Europe. This is consistent, according to Poulsen's team, with the expected effects of the olive-oil-rich "Mediterranean diet."

However, Poulsen told Reuters Health, the diet is more than just olive oil. Ideally, it's also rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains and fish.

Moreover, regardless of its benefits, he added, olive oil is no substitute for calorie control and regular exercise.

Diabetes hits children

Diabetes is striking growing numbers of children around the world as parents and doctors fail to diagnose a disease which until recently was associated mostly with middle-aged and elderly people, experts said on Tuesday.

"Diabetes has become a chronic and common disease among children ... and often these children die," Francine Kaufman, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Southern California medical school, told a news conference at the World Diabetes Congress in Cape Town.

New data from the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) showed the two most common types of diabetes - type 1, which usually strikes young people, and type 2, which has been called "adult onset" diabetes and was once unknown in children - are rising at an alarming rate.

An estimated 70,000 children under the age of 15 develop type 1 diabetes every year, while type 2 is also affecting children as young as eight in both developing and developed countries.

Japan saw the prevalence of type 2 diabetes among junior high school students almost double to 14 percent between 1980 and 1995, making it more common in children than type 1, while in some parts of the United States type 2 diabetes accounts for up to 45 percent of newly-diagnosed cases, the data said.

The growing threat of childhood diabetes is part of a wider diabetes epidemic which experts say could affect close to 400 million people worldwide by 2025.

The IDF has declared 2007 "The Year of the Child" in an effort to educate parents and pediatricians on the risks young people face.

Kaufman said doctors were still trying to understand the rapid spread of diabetes in children, but that poor eating habits and lack of exercise - once the prerogative of older people in rich countries but now almost a global phenomenon - were largely to blame.

"The childhood obesity epidemic is really driving diabetes in children," she said.

CHILDHOOD DANGER

Diabetes of both types is particularly dangerous for children and a missed diagnosis can prove fatal.

"The young tend to run into problems quickly," said Henk-Jan Aanstoot, a pediatric diabetes specialist from Rotterdam who is helping to coordinate the IDF's childhood diabetes campaign.

While type 1 can be managed with regular insulin injections, failure to start treatment can leave children at risk of rapid dehydration that can end in a deadly swelling of the brain.

Young people with untreated type 2 diabetes are also at risk for deadly complications, ranging from heart attacks to coma.

Both types of diabetes increase the likelihood of kidney and heart problems, blindness and nerve disease which can require the amputation of feet and lower legs.

Aanstoot said the biggest problem of childhood diabetes was the failure of parents and doctors to catch it, with symptoms such as excessive thirst and extreme tiredness often being overlooked or misattributed.

While young people who are not properly diagnosed can end up facing a lifetime of insulin injections and expensive drug treatments, early detection of diabetes or other blood sugar problems can result in effective interventions to slow the progress of the disease. "The test is just a finger prick away, and can prevent a lot of problems," he said. --