Extra Virgin Metabolism: The Compound That Keeps Your Muscles Young

I love olives, olive oil, and exercise. So when I read this new paper, I got absolutely giddy with dorky dietary enthusiasm. These new data show how a specific compound found in part of the olive plant can improve muscle performance and potentially fight off age-related muscle loss. I'm going to break down the data and then tell you how to use it for maximal muscle benefit. But first, I'm gonna need to review with you a bit about how muscles work at the molecular level. And please, please, I'm begging you, bear with me because it will be fundamental to our discussion of the data as well as to your general understanding of how muscles work. And it's pretty cool. And I'm gonna say up front, or reinforce up front since I just said it, this video will get technical. But I bet if you're willing to stick through it with me, even if you get lost once or twice, and you might, it will be worth it. And I promise to try to take moments to step back and synthesize episodically throughout, so you can hang on and get the big picture takeaways. Okay, with that, onward. Inside muscles, there are long filamentous overlapping proteins called actin and myosin. And the myosin has these little heads that grab onto actin, and when a nerve impulse hits the muscle, it causes the release of calcium into the cell, and this allows the myosin to walk along the actin, pulling these proteins together and increasing their overlap— the overlap between actin and myosin— and this translates into shortening of the muscle and a muscle contraction, or a muscle flex. That is what a muscle contraction is: increased overlap between actin and myosin enabled by calcium. Now here's something really important. This process is not only dependent on calcium to allow actin and myosin to interact, but the calcium also signals to mitochondria to meet the energy demands of a muscle contraction, 'cause contracting muscles takes energy. So as a high-level analogy, calcium is to muscle as a responsible driver is to a car. Calcium presses the gas pedal, signaling to muscles to contract, and also fuels up the tank to keep the engines, the mitochondria running. Hopefully that makes sense. Okay, now I want to introduce our first of several key players: the mitochondrial calcium uniporter, or MCU. MCU is what transports calcium into mitochondria, and thus it enables signaling to mitochondria to boost energy production. We'll explain how it does this momentarily. MCU is partnered with another protein, our second player, MCU regulator 1, or MCU-R1, which is MCU's essential sidekick, like Batman Robin, Rocket and Groot, SpongeBob and Patrick, Frodo and Sam, Ben and Jerry, you get the point. MCU and MCUR1 work together to let calcium into mitochondria, and this is essential for energy production in muscles. With that, now finally we get to the data. In aging, in human aging and age-related muscle loss, sarcopenia, The researchers find that mCUR1 levels drop. And this means less calcium is permitted into mitochondria as we age and less energy is effectively produced. And this is really functionally important. In fact, the researchers find that lower mCUR1 levels associate with worse muscle performance, including weaker grip strength and lower muscle mass. So, Pausing to review once more, mcuR1 is part of an essential protein pair, mcu-mcuR1, that lets calcium into muscles, into muscles' mitochondria to support energy generation. And mcuR1 levels decline with age and are extra low in older people with less muscle. And lower levels of this mcuR1 associate with less muscle mass and worse muscle performance. Weaker grip strength. So if we could rescue MCU-MCUR1 activity and get more calcium into muscle mitochondria, we could potentially boost muscle function and performance, especially as we age. So the researchers then went on to show, importantly, there is actually a cause-effect relationship, and they dissected exactly how this might work. And I want to apologize in advance for now getting even more technical, in a way that might go over a lot of your heads, but I know some of my audience does want to know the details. So try to hang on and I'll try to make it as simple as I can, which is not that simple. But basically in mitochondria there's an energy generating cycle. It's called the TCA cycle or the Krebs cycle. Those mean the same thing. And there is a gatekeeper protein complex of this cycle. It's called pyruvate dehydrogenase. And this gatekeeper This pyruvate dehydrogenase can be toggled on or off with a molecular tag. It's not really important what the molecular tag is, but it's called a phosphate group. And there's another protein that removes the molecular tag, which turns on the gatekeeper to the energy generating cycle. And here's the key point. Calcium entry into the mitochondria is what is a trigger for opening the gateway, taking the phosphate group off the pyruvate dehydrogenase, and increasing energy flux through the TCA cycle in mitochondria. So summarizing again, because I know this is a lot, muscle contractions depend on calcium. The calcium allows proteins in the muscle, the myosin and the actin, to pull together. This is a muscle contraction. And to feed that muscle contraction, muscle cells also need to produce energy in their mitochondria. Calcium is also critical here. Calcium flowing into muscle mitochondria through the MCU transporter enhances this process, opening up wider the molecular door for energy generation. I hope that all makes sense, at least at some level. I know it was hard. Thank you for bearing with me. And now that we've covered how muscles work and why MCU and MCUR1, that couple, really matter to get calcium into muscles to allow muscles to generate energy to fuel function, let's talk about a natural compound that could solve the aging problem. So enter our third player: oleuropein. Oleuropein is a natural compound found in olives, in particular in olive leaves. And the researchers, they wanted to identify natural compounds that activated MCU/MCUR1, hoping that doing so would boost muscle function. So then they screened over 5,000 compounds— 5,571 natural compounds— and oleuropein was the standout. Oleuropein binds to a pocket in the MCU protein., and in so doing increases calcium flux into mitochondria, thus opening the door to the energy-producing TCA cycle in mitochondria and potentially enhancing muscle function. But now the big, big question: Does oleuropein actually enhance muscle function? Indeed, the researchers find that oleuropein supplementation in the form of olive leaf extract given to mice increased muscle performance by reducing fatigue and increasing endurance on a treadmill running test. So, oleuropein has fast acute action enhancing muscle function and reducing muscle fatigue. But what about its chronic use? Well, even more impressively, in aged mice with reduced muscle mass, mouse sarcopenia, oleuropein also increased muscle mass, suggesting applications in age-related muscle loss, which is stunning and super hopeful and super clinically relevant. And importantly to you and me, oleuropein-rich compounds like olive leaf extract are bioavailable to humans and considered safe for human use and available for purchase. I have no affiliations to specific brands or specific brand recommendations for olive leaf extract, but I do love extra virgin olive oil. So I have to— I actually had to do some internet sleuthing and found there are a few specific olive oils that I'm definitely going to try enriched in oleuropein. Again, I personally don't have any affiliations, but I'll make some suggestions in the video notes below if you want to try them too. But more to the high-level point, consider that the Mediterranean region of the world, who tend to eat a diet relatively rich in oleuropein, also tend to have high rates of healthy aging and healthy muscle aging. And while I wouldn't attribute this solely to oleuropein, certainly I wouldn't, and these data don't say that, The observation of healthy aging in these high oleuropein intake regions, coupled with the research findings presented in this paper, definitely make me excited about the potential benefits of maintaining a high oleuropein-rich diet as I age. Plus, I love extra virgin olive oil anyway, so this feeds beautifully into my confirmation bias. But now, zooming out with some high-level takeaways. First is, science continues to uncover incredible links between diet, specific natural compounds, and how our bodies perform and age. Second, oleuropein is a shining example of how a natural compound—one already part of the human diet for millennia—could hold the key to improving muscle performance and combating age-related muscle loss. And if you're excited by that possibility, it might be worth exploring oleuropein-rich olive oils or olive leaf extract. It's not going to hurt you, and it potentially could benefit your muscles. And finally, let this be a reminder that something as simple as enjoying olives or a great extra virgin olive oil enriched in oleuropein might not only be tasty but also supportive of your long-term health. So whether you're drizzling or dousing your food in a great oleuropein-enriched extra virgin olive oil, Or adding olive leaf extract to your routine, you're giving your muscles a gift. And if this research inspired your curiosity as much as it did mine, share this video with someone who loves metabolic health science, or just olives and olive oil, as much as you do. Stay curious, I hope you found this fascinating, I hope it wasn't too technical and that you got something from it. Peace.