Oxidative stress can also change the activity of our cell proteins by changing intracellular calcium concentrations, DNA and RNA activation or inactivation and by changing phosphorylation status of various molecules.
Overall, oxidative stress is massively destructive and should be avoided. Thankfully, certain dietary measures can help ameliorate this destruction.
The Truth About Healthy Fats
For decades now our nutritionists, government, and food industry lobbies have told us that high-fat diets are bad. However, the Mediterranean diet is a contradiction to that belief. This relatively higher fat diet is actually extremely healthy.
Those on such a diet have far less cardiovascular disease or death and also far fewer problems with chronic inflammation. Part of the reason this is true of this delicious diet is the preference for olive oil over other types.
In studies of animals fed certain diets a surprising finding exists. Rats fed an olive-oil rich diet had less ROS production by their macrophages (immune cells) than those on a fish-oil-rich diet or corn-oil-rich diet.
Also, the ratio of nitric-oxide to ROS changes for the better with olive oil. There is more NO and these enhanced levels allow lower doses of antihypertensive medications to be taken as well.
How Olive Oil Relieves Oxidative Stress
Lipid peroxidation is the direct result of oxidative stress and is though to be the primary reason for chronic disease and aging. Olive oil is rich in monounsaturated fats (MUFA) and these are less oxidizable than polyunsaturated fats (PUFA).
An olive-oil-rich diet should reduce cell membrane susceptibility to the oxidation of its lipids. Laboratory measures of oxidative stress are significantly reduced when conversion to an olive-oil-rich diet take place.
For those with high cholesterol, olive oil has been found to reduce susceptibility to lipid peroxidation. This benefit is due to the phytosterols found only in olive oil.
Remember olive oil the next time that you are cooking at home. The benefits of a good, virgin or extra virgin olive oil are immense and not to be overlooked.
