ITeuroS OFFICIAL IN AMERICA! EXTRA-VIRGIN OLIVE BENEFITS THE HEART!The American federal governmenteuros Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, the final authority on the safety of foodstuffs and medicinals, officially recognised the prophylactic properties of extra-virgin olive oil for the prevention of heart disease and has urged producers to spell them out clearly on their labels. Italian producers warmly greet this all but revolutionary event, so important for the American society where one in four adults is obese owing to faulty eating habits and hence prone to serious cardiac illness. Coldiretti, the producerseuro association, hopes that similar recognition and labelling will be adopted by the European Union, especially in northern and eastern nations where good olive oil is still little known and less used. Equally exciting is a report by Dr. Javier Menendez of the Feinberg School of Medicine of Chicagoeuros North Western University, viz., that a diet of fruit, vegetables and liberal dousings of extra-virgin olive oil can inhibit the formation of malignant tumours. Thorough analyses of the pure Mediterranean diet shows that oleic acid, abundant in good olive oil, acts as a prophylactic against breast cancer by blocking the effects of Her-2/neu, present in thirty per cent of breast cancers. The Medical community has always known casually that these tumours and many heart diseases are far less common in the Mediterranean world, but Dr. Menendez and his staff have now for the first time identified the underlying pharmacological principles. Still better, oleic acid augments the effectiveness of Herceptin, a pharmaceutical widely used in breast cancer therapy.