Your antipasto has anticancer potential

Olives are a staple of the Mediterranean diet and an ingredient in a traditional favorite: antipasto salad. While the health benefits of olive oil are often touted, we seldom hear much about the small, tasty fruit of the tree itself.

Until now…

Research out of Spain has revealed that olives have antitumor potential that seems to be effective against colon adenocarcinoma cells.

The olive’s secret? Maslinic acid (MA). MA is a compound known as a natural triterpene found in high concentrations in the waxy skin of olives. MA can be extracted via a patented process, but I’m just going to start adding a few more to my antipasto salad.

The results of the recent study show how MA is capable of inducing an early extrinsic cellular death pathway in certain cancer cells. The lead researchers in this study, professors José Antonio Lupiáñez Cara and Andrés Parra Sánchez, have shown in a previous study that MA also induces apoptotic cell death in cancer cell lines.

Though the mechanisms by which MA causes cell death appears to differ in the different studies, the natural antitumor agents capable of activating both the intrinsic and extrinsic apoptotic pathways could be of great use in treating colon cancer of any origin.