Paxos News

OLIVE LEAVES

Olive leaves have for many years been used by herbalists to help fight diseases such as arthritis, eczema, asthma and high blood pressure but a recent discussion on Greek television about the results of a small-scale study into the effects of extract of olive leaves on mice with cancer, has resulted in many people now seeing olive leaves as a cure for most cancers and heart disease! Earlier studies have also shown that olive leaf extract and tinctures have been effective in lowering high blood pressure and cholesterol levels and destroying human breast and prostate cancer cells. So this really is big news here in Greece at the moment and it has led to a frenzied attempt by many Greeks to acquire the leaves.

One way to benefit, so I’m told, is to collect new olive leaves and put them in a blender with three glasses of water. It benefits apparently from adding some fruit juice – apple, orange or lemon - but is seen to be an effective cure for disease and in Athens a glass of this ‘heady cocktail’ costs three euros!!! Alternatively, you can boil a handful of leaves in a pan of water for 10 minutes to make olive leaf tea, which I’m told tastes a bit like very weak green tea. So there you go!!! There are reports of people being prepared to pay up to £40 a kilo for the leaves and so we are all now locking up and guarding our olive trees! I should however perhaps also add a HEALTH WARNING, as there have not yet been any tests to establish how toxic olive leaves or olive leaf extract might be.