If the relationship between particular eating habits and the appearance of some diseases, such as diabetes and atherosclerosis, is now established, as the diet goes on to evaluate the effect of individual foods and individual nutrients, the level of uncertainty and conflict between the results of the studies increases significantly. This should not surprise us, since it is not enough to take a single miraculous food (which is non-existent) to stay healthy; rather, we need to take care of our eating habits at 360 degrees.
This necessary premise to remember that the lists of the beneficial properties of various foods leave some time that they find: if you do not take care of the lifestyle and the diet as a whole individual foods can do little. This of course also applies to olive oil and its potential protective efficacy in the development of type 2 diabetes .
In the last few years the terms glucotoxicity and lipotoxicity have come to the fore, to indicate the damage to organs and tissues caused by chronically high levels of glucose and fatty acids in the blood.
One of the most studied aspects of this phenomenon is damage to pancreatic cells, a fundamental event in the appearance of type 2 diabetes mellitus. In in vitro studies, in fact, both glucotoxicity and lipotoxicity have been shown to reduce pancreatic beta-cell survival (deputies to the synthesis of insulin). As for lipotoxicity, we have seen that the most deleterious fatty acids are above all those saturated with long chain (palmitic and stearic in particular), while oleic acid would even seem to have a protective effect on the health of beta-cells .
Olive oil, besides being particularly rich in oleic acid, also contains substances with an antioxidant and anti-inflammatory action, such as oleocanthal, oleuropein and vitamin E. Since chronic inflammation is often associated to obesity, it reduces the sensitivity of tissues to insulin, and since free radicals are also involved in beta-cell damage, olive oil could also have protective effects in the appearance of insulin resistance .
There are, to tell the truth, also some clinical and population studies which confirm these anti-diabetic properties of olive oil; however - and this should not surprise us given the wide premise - the relationship between the consumption of olive oil and the prevention of type 2 diabetes has not yet been established with sufficient scientific evidence.
