Beneficial properties of olive oil

The Mediterranean diet is reputed to account for the lower incidence of cor onary heart disease (CHD) in southern Europe. Olive oil is the principal so urce of fat in the Mediterranean diet, therefore the southern European diet contains more monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFA) and less saturated fatty acids (SFA), compared to the Northern European diet. Atherosclerosis and th rombosis are the two key pathophysiological processes which lead to the dev elopment of CHD. Therefore, the aim of the EU project entitled "The Benefic ial Properties of Olive Oil" was to investigate how olive oil mediated its protective effect against CHD. The project had two parts, phase I involved a cross-cultural comparison to investigate the effect of a habitual souther n European diet which is rich in olive oil compared to the northern europea n diet which contains little or no olive oil on a range of CHD risk factors . In phase II, a dietary intervention study was designed to substitute diet ary SFA with MUFA, derived from olive oil, in the usual diet of free-living northern European men to investigate if this dietary change affected indic es of CHD risk. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.