Olive oil doesn’t just help in cooking, according to a new study which revealed that ingesting half a tablespoon of the product daily could reduce the risk of dementia.
Thus, consuming more than 7g of olive oil per day would reduce the risk of death linked to dementia by 28%, revealed the study carried out over 28 years on more than 90,000 people.
The researchers observed a cohort of women and another of men between 1990 and 2018. Their olive oil consumption was assessed every four years using a questionnaire on their eating habits.
During those 28 years, more than 4,700 people died due to dementia, according to the study published Monday in JAMA Network Open.
The report also determined that by replacing certain fatty substances, such as margarine or mayonnaise, with olive oil, the risk of death linked to dementia would drop by 8 to 14%.
“Substitutions of other vegetable oils or butter with olive oil were not statistically significant,” it is specified in the results.
“Among US adults, higher olive oil consumption was associated with a lower risk of dementia-related mortality, regardless of diet quality. Beyond heart health, the findings extend current dietary recommendations of choosing olive oil and other vegetable oils for cognitive health,” the researchers concluded.
