How much olive oil is the MIND diet recommending?

The MIND diet lists use of olive oil as the primary oil as one of 10 brain-healthy diet components. I have been working at doing that. However, my approach has been mostly replacing fats that I have already been using with olive oil. Because I have been eating a fairly low-fat diet, I am wondering if that is enough. Many articles say that olive oil has anti-inflammatory properties. Maybe I need to eat more olive oil to benefit from these properties.

The diet that is based on the MIND diet study (Morris et al., 2015) is based on the results of previous research on the DASH and Mediterranean diets. One of the frustrating aspects of the information published about the MIND diet is that serving sizes are not included, and, in the case of olive oil, not even a recommended amount.

This was the only mention in the Morris et al. article of a specific study on the effect of olive oil on brain health:

“Mediterranean diet interventions supplemented with either nuts or extra-virgin olive oil were effective in maintaining higher cognitive scores compared with a low-fat diet in a substudy of PREDIMED [6], a randomized trial designed to test diet effects on cardiovascular outcomes among Spaniards at high cardiovascular risk.”

I decided to find the study that Morris et al. cited and other reports of the PREDIMED study to see if they gave more specific information about the amount of olive oil needed. The Martinez-Lapiscina et al. (2013) article stated that the participants in the group that did best on cognitive tests received training on the Mediterranean Diet (which includes using olive oil instead of butter) plus they received 1 liter of olive oil per week.

My reaction was “Yikes! that’s a lot of olive oil.”  I did a little math and figured out that 1 liter is about 67 tablespoons per week or 9.57 tablespoons per day. At 120 calories per tablespoon, that adds up to 1148 calories per day! Surely, the participants were not expected to consume that much.

In a previous post, I described my struggle with keeping my weight down and the MIND diet and my worries about increasing amounts of whole grains, nuts, beans, and wine suggested as brain-healthy foods by the MIND diet would be a problem for me because I gain weight if I eat over 1200 calories per day.  I didn’t even consider the olive oil because I was originally just replacing what I had been consuming in oil.  If I am going to increase my olive oil, I will have a weight problem.

My assumption is that the 1 liter of olive oil the study participants received was for the whole family.  So, I looked further.  I finally found another article about the same study that gave me a more definitive answer. In a 2010 article, Martínez-González et al. described the design and methods of the PREDIMED study. They included a short questionnaire that they used to assess compliance with the Mediterranean diet plus extra olive oil. These are the two questions relevant to olive oil:

1. Do you use olive oil as main culinary fat?    Criteria to receive 1 point = Yes
2. How much olive oil do you consume in a given day (including oil used for frying,
salads, out-of-house meals, etc.)?   Criteria to receive 1 point  =  4 Tablespoons or more.

So, I guess I have my answer. 4 Tablespoons!  480 calories!  It seems unbelievable but this amount was repeated in a more recent New England Journal of Medicine article by Estruch et al. (2013).

Amazingly, Martínez-González et al. followed the participants’ weight for 3 months on this augmented olive oil diet and there was no change.  In spite of this, I am fairly sure that my consumption of 4 TBSP of olive oil per day would lead to a weight gain.  I don’t want to do that for a lot of reasons, but the most relevant one is that obesity has also been cited as a risk factor for Alzheimer’s

How might I be different than the people in this study who didn’t gain weight when consuming 4 TBSP of olive oil per day?
The study showed that their average age (67 at the start of the study) and BMI (about 30) were close to mine.  Perhaps they were more active. I am still struggling to get in 7,500 steps per day. Or, perhaps the 4 TBSP was just to replace the amount of oil their diets usually contained.  I have a feeling I eat more meat than they did.  Or, maybe it’s a genetic difference. If I were ambitious, I would repeat that study here in the USA.

My decision:

After all that analysis, here is my decision. I am going to try to consume at least 1 TBSP of olive oil per day without increasing my calories.  I think that will be a slight increase in olive oil consumption.  The main way that I will keep my calories in line will be to decrease portion sizes, especially of meat.

I will track my olive oil consumption and weight for a while. If I haven’t gained, I will try increasing more — a little bit at a time.

How much olive oil do I consume at present?

Breakfast:  ranges from 0 (cereal, milk, and fruit) to ¾ TBSP (Pecan Cinnamon Scone)  – average  ½ tsp

Lunch  ?   usually none

Dinner: salad dressing  (my current light balsamic dressing has about ½ tsp); sautéing vegetables or meats about 1 tsp

Total:  Rough estimate = 2 teaspoons/day.  So, I have to add 1 teaspoon to reach my goal of 1 Tablespoon per day. 

Enough for today.  I can see that my next task is to figure out how to add a little more olive oil. I have lots of ideas for this, but I have been reading that cooking with olive oil (or any oil?) is not such a good idea.  I don’t know how research-based this is, so I am going to spend some time figuring it out before I go too wild with cooking.

Any ideas? I would love to hear them.

Am I consuming enough Olive Oil on the MIND diet?

References:

Estruch, R., Ros, E.;, Salas-Salvadó, J., Covas, M.-I., Corella, D., Arós, F., . . . Martínez-González, M.A. (2013).   Primary prevention of cardiovascular disease with a Mediterranean diet. New England Journal of Medicine, 368, 1279-1290. Whole article available at http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMoa1200303

Martínez-González, M.Á., Corella, D., Salas-Salvadó, J., Ros, E., Covas, M.I., Fiol, M., . . . Estruch R.  (2012). Cohort profile: Design and methods of the PREDIMED study. International Journal of Epidemiology, 41, 377-385. doi: 10.1093/ije/dyq250. Summary at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21172932

Martinez-Lapiscina E.H., Clavero P., Toledo E., Estruch R., Salas-Salvadó J., San Julián B., . . .  . . Martinez-Gonzalez M. Á. (2013). Mediterranean diet improves cognition: the PREDIMED-NAVARRA randomised trial. Journal of  Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry, 84, 1318–1325.  Summary at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23670794

Morris, M. C., Tangney, C. C., Wang, Y., Sacks, F. M., Barnes, L. L., Bennett, D. A., & Aggarwal, N. T. (2015). Mediterranean-dietary approach to systolic hypertension diet intervention for neurodegenerative delay diet slows cognitive decline with aging. Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association, doi:10.1016/j.jalz.2015.04.011