The Mediterranean cuisine considers olive oil one of the healthiest types of food. Now it appears it has a hidden quality: it can even fight the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), as found by a team from the University of Granada, Spain, headed by Professor Andr?s Garc?a-Granados, senior lecturer in Organic Chemistry.

The researchers revealed that the maslinic acid, a natural chemical extracted from dry olive-pomace oil in oil mills, stops the action of the serin-protease, an enzyme employed by HIV to free itself from the infected cell into the extracellular medium, in order to spread the infection into the whole body. The olive-pomace oil slowed down the infection spreading by 80%.

Maslinic or crataegolic acid is a pentacyclic terpene with antioxidant and anticancer action encountered in wax from olive skin, alongside oleanolic acid. Its effects are also examined by another team at the Hospital Carlos III in Madrid, led by Prof. Vallejo N?jera.

The anti-protease inhibition activity of the maslinic acid permitted the Granada team to develop a drug also against the infections caused by protozoa Cryptosporidium, that induces small intestine infection and diarrhea. This team has already registered about ten other patents linked to this chemical's properties.

The action of the maslinic acid also spreads over the opportunistic parasitic infections accompanying HIV infections that take advantage of the depressed immune system caused by HIV.

The team tested MT2 cell line and concentrations of 25 and 30 ?g/ml maslinic acid were found to inhibit replication of a primary HIV-1 isolate. 25 ?g/ml dropped in the cytopathic effect (deadly changes in the cell) and p24 antigen levels (sign of active infection) in the supernatant culture medium was spotted. At 30 ?g/ml, the cytopathic effect lacked totally and p24 antigen levels decreased.

The dry olive-pomace oil produced at the olive-milling stage during olive oil elaboration process contains both oleanolic and maslinic acids, but only oleanolic acid, produced in China, is found on the market. Still, maslinic acid now appears to be more biologically potent.