Olive's Bone Health Benefits

Scott: How did bone health come from olive leaves? How did that connection come?

Sam Possimiers, PhD: The science behind it comes from France, because they found out and generally know that in the Mediterranean area there is less of a problem with osteoporosis. It's in general associated with the Mediterranean diet. A French research group wanted to investigate whether olives and olive oil, which is an important food source there, whether that has anything to do with the protection against osteoporosis. And they started looking into it, and they found out in fact that one of the ingredients present in black olives is very active towards bone formation. 

Scott: Okay.

Sam Possimiers, PhDs: The link between olives and olive leaves is in fact that that compound is present in much higher doses and much higher concentrations in the leaves, as opposed to the olives. You would need to eat about 100 grams of olives in order to have that amount of actual active product. But if you take it from olive leaves, you can have much better access to the ingredient. 

Scott: Can you talk about what that active ingredient is in the olive leaf? And, to a lesser extent, the olives? And how it exactly works. 

Sam Possimiers, PhD: Yeah. What this French research group found out was that oleuropein, which is a polyphenol present in olives and olive leaves, that that compound works very specifically towards bone formation. Now, if you know a little bit about bone health, bones and bone formation is a very dynamic process. In fact, it's not a single formation of bones, but there's a continuous renewal process of bones. You have bone formation, but you also have the removal of old bone. In fact, bones are continuously formed, renewed, reformed, et cetera. Yeah?

In healthy individuals, this is a very stable process. You have bone formation, you have bone resorption, and the two are perfectly in balance. What you see in fact in old individuals is that the bone resorption, the removal of bones, continues and becomes even more and more and more active, but the bone formation process is not able anymore to catch up with the bone resorption. The final balance and the final consequence of this is that you have more removal than formation, and your bones get brittle. You have a less dense bone structure, and you develop ultimately osteoporosis. 

That's the theory behind bone health. Now, what this French group found out was that this compound oleuropein, present in olives and in olive leaves, that that one works very specifically towards bone formation. This means the compound from olives, oleuropein, stimulates the bone formation, and helps in fact the body to keep this bone formation process up to the level of the bone resorption. You help the body, you support the body in a natural way to have this dynamic balance between bone formation and bone resorption. That's the very unique aspect that this group found out. This was then licensed by BioActor, and further clinically developed.