Description: Researchers from three American universities, Auburn, Temple and Yale School of Public Health, are starting a new research project along with conducting a clinical trial at Auburn University to evaluate the effect of high phenolic olive oil, mainly oleocanthal, in healthy people with a family history of Alzheimer's disease.
Their primary purpose is to study and investigate the effect of adding EVOO to the daily diet of healthy volunteers and whether it could be protective in people with a family history of Alzheimer's, usually associated with a genetic predisposition.
Researchers from three American universities, Auburn, Temple and Yale School of Public Health, are starting a new research project along with conducting a clinical trial at Auburn University to evaluate the effect of high phenolic olive oil, mainly oleocanthal, in healthy people with a family history of Alzheimer's disease.
The clinical trial and research project is titled “EVOO for Brain Health” and has been approved by Auburn University's Institutional Review Boards (IRB). It is expected to be completed by the end of 2024.
Their primary purpose is to study and investigate the effect of adding EVOO to the daily diet of healthy volunteers and whether it could be protective in people with a family history of Alzheimer's, usually associated with a genetic predisposition.
It is already known that adding EVOO to the daily diet could protect against Alzheimer's disease. However, it has not yet been investigated whether daily consumption of EVOO with high oleocanthal protects people with a genetic predisposition to Alzheimer's disease.
Alzheimer's disease, also known simply as Alzheimer's, is a chronic neurodegenerative disease that begins slowly and accelerates over time. It is incurable and fatal, accounting for 60% to 70% of dementia cases.
In the United States, six million people are living with Alzheimer's disease. That number is projected to increase to 13 million by 2050, according to the Alzheimer's Association of the USA. An estimated 50 million people worldwide are living with Alzheimer's disease today.
One of the genetic risk factors for Alzheimer's disease is apolipoprotein 4 (ApoE4), where people expressing ApoE4 could develop the disease at an earlier age in certain populations. In addition, those expressing ApoE4 may respond to medication differently than those expressing other forms of ApoE, such as apolipoprotein 3 (ApoE3).
Consequently, the professors-researchers of the three American universities in the "EVOO for Brain Health" clinical trial will evaluate whether people with a family history of Alzheimer's, who express apolipoprotein 4 (ApoE4), will benefit from EVOO with high oleocanthal in their daily diet.
The research team of the three American universities that will collaborate in this important clinical trial for human health consists of professor and researcher of Neuropharmacology Dr. Amal Kaddoumi, of the Department of Drug Discovery and Development, Harrison College of Pharmacy, Auburn University; Neuroscience professor Dr. Domenico Praticò, MD, Director of the Temple University Alzheimer's Research Center, and Dr. Tassos C. Kyriakides, researcher of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Clinical Studies, Assistant Professor at the School of Public Health, Yale University, USA. Besides this collaboration effort, this project also involves collaboration with Drs. Annie Kirby, Darren Beck, and Joshua Hollingsworth at Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine (VCOM)-Auburn Campus.
In addition, the research project “EVOO for Brain Health” has acquired the registration number NCT05929924 in the scientific database of clinical studies ClinicalTrials.gov, of the United States of America as well as 220 countries, maintained by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) of the USA.
The participation of the "Plus Health Green Evoo" high oleocanthal olive oil, which was donated by Sakellaropoulos Organic Farms for the "EVOO for Brain Health" research project, is due to its very high content of oleocanthal, a dominant health-protective phenol that has an important biological effect and has been attributed anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, cardioprotective and neuroprotective properties.
It should be noted that "Plus Health Green Evoo" olive oil is a multivarietal olive oil of specialized production, derived from five different olive varieties, with a content of 977 mg/Kg of oleocanthal, a percentage that exceeds by 720%, the average of international olive oil sampling (135 mg/Kg) that were included in a study carried out at Davis University, California, United States of America.