Food habits, Life style, Genetic background in tumour initiation and progression of Reproductive system

The relationship between diet and health is really engaging, it has been showed that modifications in dietary intake and the benefits of the Mediterranean diet, can importantly increase life expectancy, reducing the risk of chronic disease and improve quality of life. In this way, several studies assigned a highest reduction in tumor incidence to monosaturated and saturated lipids present in vegetables, such olive oil. On these basis, this study will be focused on the comprehension and understanding of initiation and progression phases linked to environmental stressors and food habits in the tumours of the reproductive system (breast and ovarian cancer). Recently it has been described the potential effect of the olive tree (Olea europaea) leaves, oil and fruits to inhibit proliferation and to induce apoptosis in different cancer cell lines. The phenolic fraction of Olive extract becomes specially interesting, including a polyphenol called Oleuropein (OL) present at higher levels in olives and leaves- as well as its hydrolysis metabolite, Hydroxytyrosol (HT). Taking this background into account, we have focused our research in the analysis of Olive leaf extracts with a high content in OL (48%) as a potential cell viability reducing agent on a malignant triple negative breast cancer cell line, MDA-MB- 231, which is highly aggressive. On this model, cell viability was measured with a MTS assay 24 and 48 h after the treatment with the Olive extract. The preliminary results seem to indicate that this extract at high concentrations (200-400µg/mL) determines a reduction in the MDA- MB-231 cell viability.