The best kind of olive oil for brain health

Olive oil is part of a brain-boosting diet, but which kind is the best? Alexander Prokopenko/Shutterstock We’ve all absorbed the message by now: olive oil is good for us. It lowers “bad cholesterol”, fights inflammation and protects against various chronic diseases, including some cancers. More recently, though, evidence has been piling up that suggests its benefits extend beyond the body to the brain. I wanted to know what that really meant. Which aspects of my cognition could it influence? How was it doing this? I had practical questions too – did it really need to be extra-virgin (and therefore eye-wateringly expensive)? And just how much do I need to consume to make a difference? The answers are more promising – and less restrictive – than I expected. It turns out, olive oil may not be the only oil with a claim on brain health. Read more Chronic inflammation messes with your mind. Here's how to calm it First though, the usual caveats. All nutrition research is notoriously difficult to do well. Studies often require participants to keep food diaries, and I probably don’t need to tell you how easy it is to “misremember” what we’ve eaten, or quietly edit out the less virtuous bits. For this reason, and many others, truly robust food studies are relatively rare. Nevertheless, patterns can emerge. Observational studies can offer clues, particularly when backed up by experiments that probe the underlying biology. Put them together and we can build a reasonably convincing picture of which foods are doing what for our health. Free newsletter Sign up to Eight Weeks to a Healthier You Your science-backed guide to the easy habits that will help you sleep well, stress less, eat smarter and age better. Sign up to newsletter Olive oil has been a prime target of late. Much of the fuss stems from its starring role in the Mediterranean diet – the most appealing of all diets, in my opinion. Who can object to advice that encourages more tomatoes, bread, fresh fish and olive oil with the occasional splash of red wine? Many studies have linked this way of eating to lower rates of heart disease, type 2 diabetes and – more recently – dementia. At first glance, this seemed to go against common dietary theories because the Mediterranean diet is in fact quite high in fat. But a closer look showed that the main source of fat comes from olive oil. That prompted scientists to ask whether olive oil itself was doing the heavy lifting. “The Mediterranean diet is far more effective if it includes extra-virgin olive oil,” nutritionist Richard Hoffman at the University of Hertfordshire in the UK told New Scientist in 2024. One influential trial enrolled more than 7000 people in Spain between the ages of 55 and 80. One group was given a 1-litre bottle of extra virgin olive oil each week and encouraged to consume around 4 to 5 tablespoons a day while following the Mediterranean diet. The second group ate similarly but instead of adding extra olive oil, they supplemented their di