Virgin olive oil & cognition
A two‑year study of 650+ older adults found higher virgin olive oil intake tied to preserved cognitive function, while common olive oil linked to declines — researchers point to gut‑mediated mechanisms as the likely pathway NutraIngredients.
The paper was published on 24 January 2026 in Microbiome (link.springer.com). The analysis covered 656 participants aged 55–75 (mean 65.0 ± 4.9 years), 47.9% women, all with overweight/obesity and metabolic syndrome drawn from the PREDIMED‑Plus cohort (link.springer.com). Higher virgin olive oil intake was associated with preservation or improvement in global cognitive scores, executive function and language performance over two years (sci.news). In contrast, greater intake of common (refined/olive‑pomace) olive oil was linked to lower gut microbial alpha diversity and faster cognitive decline. (link.springer.com) Mediation analysis identified the bacterial genus Adlercreutzia as a potential mediator of the virgin‑olive‑oil–cognition association in the study cohort (link.springer.com). The authors note that changes in the microbiota—including Adlercreutzia—accounted for only a small proportion of the observed association. (news-medical.net) Dietary exposure was assessed with a validated semi‑quantitative food‑frequency questionnaire and baseline energy‑adjusted intake was used for primary analyses in the models. (news-medical.net). The paper cautions that findings come from older adults with metabolic syndrome in an ongoing trial and calls for randomized and clinical cohort studies to test causality and generalisability. (link.springer.com) The research team lists Jiaqi Ni and colleagues from Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV), the Pere Virgili Health Research Institute (IISPV) and CIBERobn, with collaborators including Wageningen and Harvard, and the project’s code/data repository is available on GitHub under Ni‑Jiaqi/Olive‑oil_Gut‑microbiota_Cognitive‑function. (link.springer.com)
