Re: Question for long time users - help?

Could be Oleocanthal. If so, you have a VERY GOOD oil.

http://www.3dchem.com/molecules.asp?ID=199

"Good quality olive oil contains a natural chemical that acts in a similar way to a painkiller."

Also check out
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oleocanthal



A third reference
http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/abstract.cgi/jafcau/2006/54/i09/abs/jf052870b.html


Copyright © 2006 American Chemical Society

A Simple High-Performance Liquid Chromatography Method for the Determination of Throat-Burning Oleocanthal with Probated Antiinflammatory Activity in Extra-Virgin Olive-Oil s

John Impellizzeri and Jianming Lin*

Firmenich Inc., P.O. Box 5880, Princeton, New Jersey 08543

Received for review November 17, 2005. Revised manuscript received February 6, 2006. Accepted February 6, 2006.

Abstract:

A high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method was developed to quantitatively analyze oleocanthal in extra virgin olive oils. Oleocanthal, a deacetoxy ligstroside aglycone, is known to be responsible for the back of the throat irritation of olive oils and to have probated antiinflamatory activity. Oleocanthal was isolated from small amounts of olive oil sample (1 g) by liquid-liquid extraction. Hexane-acetonitrile was found to be the best solvent system to extract oleocanthal from the oil matrix. The solvent extract was analyzed by reversed-phase HPLC with UV detection at 278 nm. Chromatogaphic separation of oleocanthal from other extracted compounds and of the two geometric isomers of oleocanthal was achieved by an elution gradient with acetonitrile and water. Both the external standard calibration curve and the internal standard calibration curve were established, and quantitation using both calibration curves gave essentially the same result. The reproducibility (RSD = 4.7%), recovery (>95%), and limit of quantitation (<1 g/g) were also determined. Concentrations of oleacanthal in 10 selected throat-burning extra virgin olive oils were determined using the method (ranged from 22 to 190 g/g) with external standard calibration.

Keywords: Oleocanthal; antiinflammatory; throat irritation; high performance liquid chromatorgraphy