OLIVE OILS AND HEALTH 114 Concerning the cardiovascular system, fish oil consumption, compared to sunflower oil, has been shown to protect it during ageing, with less aortic intimal hyperplasia. Thus, as a summary, virgin olive oil protects the liver, pancreas, and bone better than polyunsaturated rich-oils such as sunflower or fish ones. Fish oil, however, is optimum for the cardiovascular system. The worst effects on the studied organs were observed after sunflower oil consumption. Fish oil is not the best for the liver, pancreas exocrine fraction, and bone. As has been previously mentioned, the type of dietary fat promotes different lipotoxicity patterns during ageing, and long-term, abundant polyunsaturated fat ingestion can promote organ lipotoxicity. Could lipotoxicity differences during ageing, therefore, have an impact on longevity? Is it possible that monounsaturated fat consumption promotes not only healthy ageing, but also increases lifespan? To answer these questions, a study on rat survival and mortality causes was performed with the same dietary fats described above. Results showed the main cause of death to be neoplasia followed by infection/inflammatory and vascular processes. The most relevant finding of the study was that there were no significant differences in the causes of death among the three experimental groups. However, analysis of the survival curves revealed that the median lifespan was longer in animals fed with virgin olive oil and fish oil compared to those fed with sunflower oil. These results indicate that, while the type of dietary fat does not alter the frequency of occurrence of the different causes of death studied, it does influence the timing at which these causes ultimately lead to mortality. In other words, animals fed with virgin olive oil or fish oil died from the same causes as those fed with sunflower oil, but they survived longer than the latter. Animal studies with respect to diet and ageing are more frequent than human ones due to the difficulties involved for performing the last. Nevertheless, some human observational studies have been performed concerning the role of olive oil consumption in ageing. One noteworthy study focused on the association between olive oil consumption as a main source of fat and healthy ageing in a Greek population older than 50. Two databases were employed, one from the ATTICA, a nutrition and health study involving 1128 adults from the Athens metropolitan area, and the other from the MEDIS (MEDiterranean Islands) with 2221 adults from the Greek islands. The participants were divided in three groups: a) without olive oil consumption; b) combined consumption of olive oil and other dietary fats; c) exclusively consuming olive oil as a source of fat. Healthy ageing was measured by the successful ageing index, in which social, clinical, and lifestyle characteristics related to health, including education, economic status, physical activity, body mass index, depression, socializing with family and friends, number of annual trips,
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