A study by the ‘Reina Sofia’ University Hospital of Cordoba reveals that extra virgin olive oil contains anti-inflammatory properties. This work determines how the micro-nutrients of some fats influence cardiovascular diseases, diabetes or cancer and whether the ingestion of these fats may modify the inflammatory process in healthy people. Specialists from the centre in Cordoba studied the consumption of diets with different fat composition, based on extra virgin olive oil, walnuts and butter. They discovered that the ingestion of extra virgin olive oil modulated the inflammatory mediators in a decreasing way in healthy people, whilst a diet rich in walnuts had an intermediate effect and the one rich in butter had a prejudicial effect on the inflammation mediators. They also observed that the oil reduced the plasmatic concentration of other molecules that are expressed on the walls of the blood vessels and that also encourage inflammation. The researchers attributed this new beneficial effect of the olive oil to its high richness in micro-nutrients. For Doctor Francisco Pérez Martínez, one of the research leaders, the results from the study once again confirm the goodness of the Mediterranean diet, “a diet model with a high content of mono-unsaturated fats, from olive oil, which can induce a wide range of biological effects on the cardiovascular system".