Only one wrinkle
Jeanne Calment lived to be 122. When she was 120, Jeanne said to a reporter, ‘I have only one wrinkle… and I’m sitting on it.’
She was there when they built the Eiffel tower and she met Vincent van Gogh when she was fourteen.
She had no signs of dementia, and rode a bike past the age of hundred. When researchers looked into what she might have been doing or eating that made her live so long, they found something unusual: olive oil. Jeanne said she used to spread it all over all her food all the time. She even used it to keep her skin healthy.
Anti-aging ingredient
As it turns out, there’s a reason olive oil worked so well for Jeanne Calment. Olive oil has a powerhouse anti-aging ingredient called tyrosol, which is one of the strongest antioxidants we have. It can get rid of free radicals ten times better than green tea, and twice as well as CoQ10 (1)
Free radicals
Tyrosol can also shut down aging in your cells. Tyrosol turns on a group of longevity genes called ‘forkhead box’ genes, or FOXO’s.
Scientists have known for a long time that cells which multiply rapidly – like white blood cells – protect themselves from free-radical attacks by using antioxidants. But there are a lot of other cells in your body that don’t multiply very fast, and don’t have antioxidant protection. So how were they surviving free-radical attacks? What they discovered was that FOXO genes were doing the work. FOXO’s were shutting down the aging of these cells when under attack, and directly increasing amounts of the body’s ‘master antioxidant’ Superoxide dismutase (SOD) (2)
FOXO genes were extending life in those cells an tyrosol turns on FOXO genes.
Tyrosol has also been found to protect cells of the central nervous system from dying after exposure to toxins like glutamate (MSG and artificial sweeteners). Because it’s neuroprotective, tyrosol is being studied as a beneficial treatment for Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and other diseases. (3, 4, 5)
White wine
By the way: tyrosol is also found in white wine. The Heart Foundation and Research Center in New Jersey tested white wines for their antioxidant power. They found white wine drinkers had the amount of harmful free radicals reduced by 34%. Only when you drink moderately though.
BUT!
Wikipedia learned me that Jeanne Calment also ate a kilo of chocolate per week, that’s she drank port, smoked, and lived a very comfortable life without having to work one day.
Olive oil (extra virgin!) is extremely healthy but of course there are other factors that play key roles in whether you age healthily or not…
Nevertheless 
You want to use the best and greatest tasting extra virgin olive oil from the east of Crete and you live in Holland?
Click here!
(Source: newsletter Al Sears, MD)
1 “List of Antioxidants.” Antioxidant Chart; www.antioxidantchart.com
2 Kops, G.J., Dansen, T.B., Polderman, P.E., et al, ‘Forkhead’ transcription factor FOXO3a protects quiescent cells from oxidative stress,” Nature Sept. 19, 2002;419(6904):316-21
3 Application for US Patent “Natural Products and Derivatives Thereof for Protection Against Neurodegenerative Diseases Through Use of Novel Phenolic Compounds.” Application Number 20030236202
4 Miró-Casas, E., Covas, M.I., Fitó, M., et al, ‘Tyrosol and hydroxytyrosol are absorbed from moderate and sustained doses of virgin olive oil in humans’, European Journal of Clinical Nutrition 2003;57:186–190
5 Visiolia, Francesco, Gallia, Claudio, Bornetb, Francis, et al, ‘Olive oil phenolics are dose-dependently absorbed in humans’, FEBS Letters February 2000;468(2-3):159-160