OLIVE OIL PHARMACY
OLIVE OIL FROM THE REGIONS OF THE MUNICIPALITY OF MESSINA
The olive oil from the area of the Municipality of Messini in Messinia, especially from the hills with an altitude of 250 to 400 meters, is a medicine with an increased content of the beneficial for human beings substances oleacin and oleocanthal. This is supported by the Assistant Professor of Pharmacy of the University of Athens Prokopios Mayatis, who found in a scientific way that olive oil from the municipality of Messini, the largest in area in Messinia, is superior nationwide, which is also true for olive oil from the Koroneiki variety.
Mr. Mayatis presented the first findings of his research in 2012. The young scientist showed that olive oil from Messinia and in this case from the Municipality of Messini, has significantly higher concentrations of beneficial substances for health compared to olive oils from other regions of Greece.
Mr.Mayatis, who is active at the University in the Department of Pharmacognosy and Chemistry of Natural Products, analyzed a series of samples of extra virgin olive oil for the highly beneficial substances oleocanthal and oleacin. The analyses were performed by a new method, based on the H-NMR nuclear magnetic resonance technique at 600 MHz, which was applied to 145 monoculture olive oil samples from different regions of Greece for a period of 2 years after acetonitrile extraction and addition of syringaldehyde as an internal standard.
Oleocanthal has been found to exhibit strong anti-inflammatory and neuroprotective activity and a number of the beneficial effects of olive oil, especially on the cardiovascular system, are at least partly attributed to it. This substance has the characteristic bitter taste of fresh olive oil, in particular that known as agave oil. The similar substance, oleic acid, is the most powerful antioxidant in olive oil, also very beneficial to humans.
From the measurements it was found that not all olive varieties produce olive oil with the same content of these beneficial substances, while the Coroneiki variety has the greatest potential for the production of these substances depending on when the fruit is harvested, while the milling temperature plays an important role, the lower the temperature, the richer in beneficial substances the oil is produced.
Also, the results of analyses on coroneiki samples showed that the average concentration of these beneficial substances in 28 samples of coroneiki olive oil from the Municipality of Messini, of the period 2011/12, was significantly increased compared to 48 samples of coroneiki olive oil from Laconia, Ilia, Crete, Attica (harvest 20011/12 and 2010/11).
