Episode 201 - Extra Virgin Olive Oil vs Ibuprofen – What the Science Says

Episode 201 - Extra Virgin Olive Oil vs Ibuprofen – What the Science Says

Did you know the humble bottle of extra virgin olive oil in your pantry could be doing more than just making your salad taste good?

In this episode, I’m unpacking a game-changing compound found in high quality EVOO – oleocanthal – which behaves just like ibuprofen. We’re talking natural anti-inflammatory power that can help reduce exercise-associated inflammation, support recovery and keep your immune system firing – without wrecking your gut or kidneys like NSAIDs can.

You’ll learn:

• What oleocanthal is and why it’s like nature’s ibuprofen

• How to spot a good quality EVOO (not all are created equal)

• Why this simple pantry staple could be a secret weapon in your recovery strategy

Links:

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Episode Transcription

Episode 201:  Extra Virgin Olive Oil vs Ibuprofen – What the Science Says

Welcome to the Triathlon Nutrition Academy podcast. The show designed to serve you up evidence-based sports nutrition advice from the experts. Hi, I'm your host Taryn, Accredited Practicing Dietitian, Advanced Sports Dietitian and founder of Dietitian Approved. Listen as I break down the latest evidence to give you practical, easy-to-digest strategies to train hard, recover faster and perform at your best. You have so much potential, and I want to help you unlock that with the power of nutrition. Let's get into it.

Taryn Richardson (00:00)
Welcome back to another episode of the Triathlon Nutrition Academy podcast. We are up to episode 201, which absolutely blows my mind. If you haven't listened to it yet, please jump back and listen to episode 200, where I had a bunch of absolute legends who have had the pleasure of working with over the last couple of years, come and join me and take over the mic a little bit to celebrate this massive milestone.
 
Now today's episode comes off the back of me just getting off a recording of a brand new masterclass for our TNA alumni athletes, all about extra virgin olive oil. And I covered everything from what extra virgin olive oil actually is and why it's such a powerful tool for endurance athletes.
 
How it can help you with that exercise associated inflammation that we probably all suffer from, the truth about cooking with it, and exactly how much you need to get the real performance benefits out of it and how to pick a good one.
 
But today I wanted to bring you one slice of that masterclass here on the podcast because it's way too cool not to share with you. And that is the science behind a compound in extra virgin olive oil called oleocanthal, which behaves a lot like ibuprofen. Yep, you heard that right. Let's get into it.
 
Meet oleocanthal. Oleocanthal is a naturally occurring compound found only in really high quality extra virgin olive oils. It is not just in regular olive oil and any refined oil. So don't go grabbing the cheapest thing on the market and expecting magic from it.
 
What's interesting about oleocanthal is that it gives extra virgin olive oil that really set a stringent peppery burn that you might get in your throat if you are drinking it straight,
 
that feeling that makes you kind of want to cough a little bit.
 
And that, my friend, is actually a really good sign that you've got a good quality extra virgin olive oil with that magical bioactive power. But here's where things get really interesting.
 
The story goes that back in 2005, a group of researchers led by Gary Bochamp were tasting freshly pressed olive oil in Italy. And one of them commented, this stings my throat like ibuprofen. And whether that story is true or not, you can never trust everything you read on the internet. But that comment kicked off an entire scientific investigation.
 
And what they discovered was that the oleocanthal inhibits the same cyclooxygenase enzymes that ibuprofen does, COX-1 and COX-2, both of which are involved in the body's inflammatory response.
 
And that paper was published in 2005 in Nature
 
Activity in Extra Virgin Olive
 
I'll link that paper in the show notes if you do want to dive in. But what does that actually mean? Essentially, oleocanthal can mimic that anti-inflammatory effect of ibuprofen,
 
and in a much smaller dose. So the research has estimated that about 50 mls of olive oil or extra virgin olive oil provides the equivalent of about 10 % of a standard ibuprofen tablet.
 
That is very exciting science. So that dosing can help reduce that low grade and chronic inflammation that we can often suffer from as an endurance athlete. Now, before we zoom in on why that matters for you as a triathlete, let's just take a big step out for a second and talk about that bigger picture of inflammation.
 
Now, inflammation isn't always bad. In fact, it's normal, right? It's an essential part of the adaptation process to exercise. You put your body under stress through training, as well as we have other stresses, but as an example from training, it does create this little micro damage in inflammation in the body, and your body then responds to that,
 
by repairing and recovering and rebuilding back stronger than it was before.
 
Now that is acute inflammation. That bad boy is a good thing. And that is what we are doing when we're training.
 
But the problem starts when that inflammation hangs around for too long and it becomes chronic inflammation.
 
That's the kind that lingers in between sessions. It accumulates as you go through a training block.
 
And it accumulates with poor nutrition recovery, poor sleep recovery, poor nutrition.
 
and or constant stress. Hands up if you went tick, tick and tick for all those things.
 
And all of that compounded over time is absolutely going to hold you back as an athlete.
 
So if any of those things sound like you, here's how you know if you're riding the wave of chronic inflammation. One, you feel sore all the time.
 
Even after more easier sessions, you're getting sick more often than usual and they might be hanging around for longer or you just get over something and then you pick up something else.
 
You can't back up those key high performance sessions with the same intensity in the first session. So the second one is meant to be really hard, but you're unable to achieve that.
 
You feel like you're hitting plateaus despite training or constantly training and making training peaks go green or ticking off your training program. But your performance or your body seems to be plateauing and you're not getting any faster and you're not getting any fitter.
 
Or finally, you just feel like you're running on empty all the time. Like a lot of that can be nutrition related, but it can be a major red flag that you're dealing with some chronic inflammation. Does any of that sound familiar?
 
Let me walk you through two quick examples of athletes where this might have been the case.
 
So athlete number one is your everyday classic weekend warrior. You're up early every morning to train. You fuel inconsistently. You're skipping your recovery nutrition or you think you're doing a good job, but you're not really sure what your targets are to be hitting correctly every time.
 
You're juggling work, you're juggling family, you're juggling life stress. That probably sounds like 99 % of triathletes listening. But you're constantly feeling sore, you're feeling sluggish and you feel like you're just getting through your training sessions and you're hanging on for dear life, but you're not actually nailing them. There's a lot of big nutrition things that could be wrong there, but chronic inflammation could be something that is underlying for that type of athlete.
 
Athlete example number two is an overachiever in their race prep mode.
 
They're in a big build phase for a 70.3. They're smashing long bricks and race simulations and a lot of high intensity work for extended hours. But they're also relying on a daily ibuprofen and pain medication for potentially a sore knee or some sort of annoying niggle that just won't settle. And you've got a big race coming up. So you're just going to get to the start line, get through the race and then sort it out afterwards.
 
That athlete thinks that they are staying on top of things as best as they can, but their recovery is compromised.
 
And then in race week, in the last few weeks beforehand, they've picked up a couple of colds.
 
And they've had to dial back training to try and get well before race day.
 
Now in both of those examples, there is chronic unresolved inflammation underlying,
 
that hasn't actually been addressed properly. And while ibuprofen might be that quick relief band-aid to get you to the start line, it is not a great long-term strategy, especially for endurance athletes.
 
Regular use of NSAIDs or non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs like ibuprofen are linked to gastrointestinal damage. Think like your gut lining and the permeability, which can be damaged with use over time. And you have that damage with exercise anyway.
 
So you're accelerating your problems with gut issues. Kidney stress is another big red flag or another big issue, especially when you're getting dehydrated in training and in long races. And you can even blunt muscle protein synthesis pathways, which means that you may not actually adapt well to the training that you're doing in the first place.
 
Now this is where something like oleocanthal rich extra virgin olive oil could play a massive role in helping you out. It's going to offer real food anti-inflammatory support without those negative side effects of taking drugs.
 
Now, as triathletes, we are constantly juggling inflammation. Training stress, poor sleep, life stress,
 
illness and recovery. It is a lot. I fully understand. It's a lot.
 
And while that acute inflammation is a completely normal part of your training, too much of it though, and not clearing it effectively can absolutely, can absolutely impair your recovery, increase your injury risk, decrease your immune function, and just make you feel shit all the time.
 
So if you're thinking that this is you, maybe look at introducing something like a good quality extra virgin olive oil, which has natural anti-inflammatory properties to help support your recovery without all those negative side effects that come from regular ibuprofen use and other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.
 
not playing with gut issues, kidney function, risk of blocking your muscle protein synthesis pathways, which is definitely not what we want to be doing. And it's just a real food way to support your body every single day.
 
But it has to be a good quality extra virgin olive oil because not all olive oils contain oleocanthal.
 
It's only going to be found in cold pressed unrefined extra virgin olive oil. And even then, if those boxes are ticked, it still needs to be fresh and it still needs to be well made,
 
because once olive oil is refined, exposed to light, exposed to heat, or it just gets too old, those levels of the polyphenols like oleocanthal start to degrade relatively rapidly.
 
So if you're still just cooking with the giant big tin of whatever you've got sitting in the back of your pantry, that was on special years ago, you are not likely to be getting the benefit.
 
Now inside the masterclass that I just finished recording, I walk our TNA athletes through how to choose a good quality extra virgin olive oil, the brands I recommend right across the globe, no matter which country you live in.
 
And how to get enough of it in the right dose with the right timing and the right strategy to see the benefits from it, including how to cook with it.
 
How to store it effectively, what the science says about smoke point, and tons of easy ways to actually include it into your diet without having to try hard.
 
So what's the summary from today's episode? The Too Long Didn't Read.
 
Oleocanthal is a natural plant-based anti-inflammatory compound that is found naturally in extra virgin olive oils and actually works like ibuprofen. And there is research to back this up.
 
Now, I'm not suggesting you ditch your pain meds or start rubbing your sore calves in olive oil. This podcast does not replace medical advice, but it's pretty amazing to think that something as simple as your cooking oil could have this kind of therapeutic effect.
 
And if you're somebody that is constantly sore, constantly feeling fatigued and sluggish or struggling to back up from your sessions, Extra Virgin Olive Oil might be just one of those wins worth adding to your triathlete nutrition toolkit.
 
So if you're an alumni in the TNA program, the full masterclass is now live and available in your member hub. And if you're not a TNA athlete yet, doors will open again soon. So make sure you've registered your interest at dietitianapproved.com / academy to join us. Inside is where all that next level nutrition stuff lives.
 
And I love to go deep on the practicalities of how to make food your secret weapon.
 
Thank you so much for tuning in today and wrapping me around your ear holes. If you learn something new, I would love for you to share this on your social media or with your training group. And don't forget to hit subscribe so you never miss a weekly dose of Performance Nutrition Tips.
 
Until next week, happy training.

Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Triathlon Nutrition Academy podcast. I would love to hear from you. If you have any questions or want to share with me what you've learned, email me at [email protected]. You can also spread the word by leaving me a review and taking a screenshot of you listening to the show. Don't forget to tag me on social media, @dietitian.approved, so I can give you a shout out, too. If you want to learn more about what we do, head to dietitianapproved.com. And if you want to learn more about the Triathlon Nutrition Academy program, head to dietitianapproved.com/academy. Thanks for joining me and I look forward to helping you smashed in the fourth leg - nutrition!