Numerous shoppers using olive leaf extract report higher energy levels when using it. Is it real or a placebo effect? Most doctors might tell you that since no long-term studies have been done on the effects of olive leaf extract then don’t take it every day. Take it every few days and take a week off, at least. You really don’t know the long-term effects yet of this in your body.
On the other hand, the short-term research reports that it has «shown to be extremely safe and non-toxic (even in large doses).» To be on the safe side, check out the reports, and read the book, Olive Leaf Extract, by Dr. Morton Walker for further information on its effectiveness and full range of applications. See the book, Amazon.com: Olive Leaf Extract (9781575662268): Morton Walker: Books.
Sacramento’s various health food events, stores, and trends each year have focused on various extracts to help lower too-high blood pressure naturally without drugs, when drugs are not necessary. The latest trend is to try olive leaf extract, and to ‘clean’ the liver, or possibly lower cholesterol somewhat with the extract of artichoke. In the Sacramento and Davis regional areas, the University of California, Davis has studied the health effects of extracts of the olive leaf. See the PDF file article, Olive Mineral Nutrition. Also, if you want to read the latest studies on phytotherapy, check out the journal, Phytotherapy Research.
You can obtain olive leaf extract at most Sacramento health food stores and natural food markets, for example at Elliot’s Natural Foods in the Arden Arcade area of Sacramento. Also, you may want to read a wide variety of studies and articles on olive leaf extract used to lower high blood pressure, for example the August 26, 2008 news release based on a study of olive leaf extract, «Olive leaf extract can help tackle high blood pressure and cholesterol.» There have been other studies such as, «A compound extracted from olives inhibits cancer cells growth and prevents their appearance.»
Taking 1000mg of a specific olive leaf extract (EFLA®943) can lower cholesterol and lower blood pressure in patients with mild hypertension (high blood pressure). These findings came from a ‘Twins’ trial, in which different treatments were given to identical twins. By doing this, researchers could increase the power of their data by eliminating some of the uncertainties caused by genetic variations between individual people.
The research is published in the September, 2008 edition of Phytotherapy Research. Check out the study at the primary source, «Food supplementation with an olive (Olea europaea L.) leaf extract reduces blood pressure in borderline hypertensive monozygotic twins (pages 1239–1242).»
The issue here, is the study was done with borderline hypertensives. If you have high blood pressure increasing as you age is is not borderline any longer, will olive leaf extract still work to reduce your blood pressure without drugs if you have decided to step away from conventional medicine and find the root cause of your problem, perhaps a genetic variant in your kidneys or some other cause, for example toxic metals in your system or anger issues, stress, lifestyle, and diet?
Hypertension is one of the most common and important disease risk factors imposed by the modern lifestyle. Many people would therefore benefit from finding ways of reducing blood pressure. Experiments in rats had previously indicated that olive leaf extract could be one way of achieving this goal.
To test this in humans, researchers from Switzerland and Germany conducted a pilot trial with 20 identical (monozygotic) twin pairs who had an increased blood pressure. Individuals were either given placebo capsules or capsules containing doses of 500mg or 1000mg of olive leaf extract EFLA®943. Pairs of twins were assigned to different treatments. After the subjects had taken the extract for eight weeks researchers measured blood pressures as well as collecting data about aspects of life-style.
«The study confirmed that olive leaf extract EFLA®943 has antihypertensive properties in humans,» says one of the co-authors, Cem Aydogan, General Manager, Frutarom Health.
«This works showed that taking a 1000mg dose has substantial effects in people with borderline hypertension,» says Aydogan.
Regarding cancer and how a compound in the leaf of the olive tree might help is research from the University of Granada that has revealed how maslinic acid, a compound present in the leaf and the olive skin wax extracted from alpeorujo (crushed olive pulp), has the capacity of preventing cancer as well as regulating apoptosis in carcinogenic processes.
Maslinic acid is a protease inhibitor that, among other features, has the capacity of regulating cell growth. It is useful for cancer treatment, as it allows to control the hyperplasia and hypertrophy processes, typical of this disease. The scientists of the UGR have characterized for the first time maslinic acid action from the molecular point of view when it is applied to the development of tumour cells.
This work has been carried out by Ph D student Fernando Jesús Reyes Zurita, and directed by Professor José Antonio Lupiáñez Cara, of the department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology I. According to them, the advantages of maslinic acid are three: Unlike other anti-carcinogenic products, highly cytotoxic, it is a natural compound and, therefore, less toxic. In addition, it is selective, this is, it only acts on carcinogenic cells, whose pH is more acid than usual. And lastly, it has a preventive nature, as it can inhibit cancer appearance in those cells with a higher predisposition to develop it.
For all types of cancer, can olive leaf extract help if the medical studies show any results?
Although the research group of Professor Lupiáñez Cara has analysed the effect of maslinic acid in the treatment of colon cancer, it can be used in different types of tumours. For the moment, their research works have been developed in colon carcinoma lines and transgenic mice, but they have not dismissed the possibility of applying them to humans in future.
Maslinic acid is a pentacyclic terpene which, besides being anti-carcinogenic, it has anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects and can be found in high concentrations in olive skin wax. At present, the only production plant of this substance at a semi-industrial level in the whole world is at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Granada.
So check out these studies. Scientists spend time trying to fiind flaws in studies, and when they can’t find flaws, the research continues. And sometimes the research continues if a flaw is found and corrected in the next study. So when Sacramento reaches for the next plant extract, at least there are studies online to read to talk with your health care team about or to sample. The results are one reason why some nutritionists are interested in ethnobotany research.
About olive leaf extract: for thousands of years, tea brewed from the leaves of certain species of olive trees have been used as folk medicine in those nations where olive trees grow naturally. In modern times, at last scientists are studying folkloric herbal remedies such as the extracts of olive leafs and the extracts of artichokes. At least in Sacrameanto, the use of these extracts is growing more popular as mainstream TV shows present more research in plain language in the news and in the health-related programs. For example, the April 4, 2011 Dr. Oz TV show covered research findings in plain English on artichoke extract. See, Herbal Healers: Artichoke Extract, Pt 1. | The Dr. Oz Show. Also see the article, Olive Leaf Extract.
Does olive leaf extract kill the good bacteria with the bad? According to the article, » Olive Leaf Extract,» the problem with using olive leaf extract in the body was that once in the blood, a protein combined with it and caused it to be inactivated. An American company in 1995 found that if the active molecule in olive leaf extract was rotated around a specific axis by a precise amount, the blood protein no longer inactivated it.
So once the blood protein no longer inactivated olive leaf extract, it then could effectively eliminate or control a very broad range of microorganisms and associated conditions in the body. The list of microbial-related illnesses olive leaf is said to help include the following: herpes, Epstein Barr (and cytomegalo viruses), chlamydia, cholera, hepatitis (A, B, and C), malaria, measles, meningitis, rabies, tapeworm, salmonella, tuberculosis, staphylococcus, polio, vaginitis, thrush, strep throat, whooping cough, pneumonia, ringworm, bacillus cereus, and several others, according to the article, «Olive Leaf Extract.» But what do scientists report regarding actual funded research on olive leaf extracts?
Research emphasize that olive leaf extract products without this unique molecular rotation are minimally effective in the body because they are inactivated by a blood protein after a short period of time (approximately 15 minutes). But the actual research studies report that «olive leaf extract has been shown to lower blood pressure, cause dilation of coronary arteries, reduce atrial fibrillation, and possess antioxidant capacity,» according to the article, «Olive Leaf Extract.»
