A prescription for olive oil to fight breast cancer

A prescription for olive oil?

An examination dietitian at Brown University swears by it – and the science is supporting her up.

Brown University researcher Mary Flynn says you can practically drink the stuff.

“At least three tablespoons a day” is what she prescribes her patients.

One of her first breast cancer patients was Jean Albert . That was 23 years ago.

Albert had a lumpectomy and underwent chemotherapy and radiation. Then, she met Flynn.

“I had started to use olive oil a little bit, but when Mary talked to me about it, I really embraced it,” said Albert.

Albert went on to say she learned a few things, like how cooking your vegetables in extra virgin olive oil is a good thing

“It helps you absorb the nutrients,” Albert said.

“I think people look at it and say wow, it’s got a lot of calories,” she said. “But I think of them as good calories.”

Flynn has done the research to back that up. When she compared a low fat diet to hers — a plant-based diet rich in olive oil — she found breast cancer risk went down. So did something else.

“I was very surprised to find out they lost more weight with the higher olive oil diet,” said Flynn. “Also, they had lower levels of insulin, glucose and triglycerides.”

This latest olive oil research out of Spain is another stamp of approval for this nutrient dense liquid that Flynn refers to as medicine.

“What they found was that the women who consumed more olive oil had an enormously decreased risk of breast cancer,” said Flynn.

Since the mid-1990s there have been a number of studies looking at the health benefits of extra virgin olive oil, showing it improves memory, can prevent heart disease and that you can even lose weight by incorporating it in to your diet.