What If Liking Extra Virgin Olive Oil Is a Longevity Signal?

Study Overview

The paper, “Food preferences and mortality risk in the prospective cohort of UK Biobank participants,” was published in Scientific Reports in 2026 by Gerrit Eichner, Matthias Fasshauer, and Sandra M. Schaefer. It was a prospective cohort analysis, not a randomized controlled trial. The investigators included 177,148 UK Biobank participants who completed an online food preference questionnaire and linked those responses to all-cause mortality records.

Participants rated 150 items on a 9-point hedonic scale from “extremely dislike” to “extremely like.” Ten non-food items were removed, leaving 140 food preferences for analysis. The researchers grouped answers into low preference (1-3), medium preference (4-6), and high preference (7-9), then compared high versus low preference using Cox proportional hazards models.

The cohort was older and largely White: mean age 66 years, 57.3% female, 97.2% White, with 3.4 years mean follow-up. Across 607,779 person-years, 3,355 deaths occurred. Models adjusted for age at questionnaire completion, sex, smoking status, ethnic background, general health status, and highest qualification. The study used Holm correction across 140 food items to reduce the false-positive problem that often haunts diet-wide analyses.

Key Findings: The Numbers That Matter

The headline result is unusually strong for a single food-preference item: high preference for extra virgin olive oil was associated with 33% lower all-cause mortality risk compared with low preference, with HR 0.67 and 95% CI 0.58 to 0.78. Because the item survived Holm adjustment, the signal was not just one uncorrected p-value among 140 tests.

EVOO was not alone. Other lower-risk preference markers included asparagus HR 0.69 (0.62-0.77), broccoli HR 0.69 (0.61-0.79), salad leaves HR 0.72 (0.62-0.83), lentils and beans HR 0.75 (0.67-0.86), wholemeal bread HR 0.67 (0.57-0.79), black olives HR 0.85 (0.78-0.92), and green olives HR 0.85 (0.78-0.92). In the opposite direction, regular fizzy drinks were associated with higher mortality risk, HR 1.36 in the main analysis and 1.38 (1.24-1.54) across the abstracted robustness framing.

Mechanism: Why EVOO Preference Might Track Biology

This study did not measure olive-oil intake, plasma oleic acid, urinary phenols, oxidized LDL, or inflammatory biomarkers. So the mechanism cannot be proven from this dataset. Still, the biological plausibility is strong when the finding is placed beside intervention trials. Extra virgin olive oil supplies oleic acid plus phenolics such as hydroxytyrosol, tyrosol, oleocanthal, oleacein, and ligstroside derivatives. These compounds can reduce oxidative modification of LDL, support endothelial nitric-oxide signaling, and dampen inflammatory pathways including COX-related eicosanoid signaling and NF-κB activation.

But the preference angle probably matters just as much as the chemistry. People who genuinely like peppery, bitter, grassy EVOO may be more likely to eat salad leaves, vegetables, legumes, fish, and home-cooked Mediterranean-style meals. In this paper, the lower-risk cluster was exactly that: vegetables, herbs, legumes, olives, wholemeal bread, and EVOO. Liking EVOO may therefore be a marker of an entire food environment, not merely a causal molecule.

That distinction is essential. A high-polyphenol EVOO can plausibly improve lipid oxidation and vascular function. But a preference for EVOO in the UK Biobank may also encode taste education, socioeconomic status, cooking habits, lower ultra-processed food dependence, and less sugar-sweetened beverage intake. The biology is real; the exposure measure is behavioural.

Context: Confirmation, Not a Stand-Alone Breakthrough

The result fits the broader Mediterranean-diet literature. PREDIMED, the landmark randomized trial, showed that Mediterranean dietary patterns supplemented with extra virgin olive oil or nuts reduce major cardiovascular events in high-risk adults. More recent PREDIMED analyses have linked higher EVOO exposure and urinary Mediterranean-diet phenolic signatures with lower cardiovascular risk. In those studies, EVOO is not merely a “healthy fat”; it is part of a dietary pattern rich in plants and phenolic compounds.

What is new here is the measurement strategy. Instead of asking “how often did you consume olive oil?”, the authors asked “how much do you like it?” Food-frequency questionnaires can be biased by memory, dieting behaviour, and the desire to answer in socially approved ways. Food preferences may be more stable and less morally loaded. The authors cite prior evidence that preference and intake are meaningfully correlated, including Spearman correlations around 0.50 in an adult Argentine cohort and genetic correlations above 0.7 between corresponding preference and intake traits in other work.

So this paper does not replace intake studies or biomarker studies. It triangulates them. If EVOO intake, EVOO-related phenolic biomarkers, and EVOO preference all point toward better outcomes, confidence rises — provided we do not overstate causality.

Limitations

• • Observational design: the study can show association, not causation.
• • Preference is not intake: liking EVOO does not prove how much EVOO was consumed, what quality it was, or how it was used.
• • Short follow-up: mean follow-up was 3.4 years, relatively brief for diet and mortality.
• • Selection bias: only participants who completed the online questionnaire were included; the final sample was 97.2% White and may not generalize globally.
• • Residual confounding: adjustment covered major variables, but income, cooking skill, total diet quality, medication use, and healthcare engagement can still distort associations.
• • No olive-oil biomarkers: the study did not confirm EVOO exposure using blood or urine phenolic markers.

Our Take

This is a strong epidemiology paper for hypothesis-building, not a clinical prescription. The sample size is excellent, the mortality endpoint is hard, the multiple-testing correction is responsible, and the sensitivity analyses make the pattern less fragile. The EVOO association is also directionally consistent with randomized Mediterranean-diet evidence and mechanistic olive-polyphenol trials.

The weak point is exposure. “Preference” is clever, but it is not the same as grams per day of verified extra virgin olive oil. Our read: this paper strengthens the case that EVOO belongs in the longevity pattern, especially when paired with plant-rich eating. It does not prove that buying a bottle and changing nothing else lowers mortality by 33%. The useful message is subtler and better: cultivate a taste for real EVOO because it may be one of the sensory anchors that makes a healthier dietary pattern sustainable.

Reference

Eichner G, Fasshauer M, Schaefer SM. Food preferences and mortality risk in the prospective cohort of UK Biobank participants. Scientific Reports. 2026;16:12727. doi: 10.1038/s41598-026-48494-3. PMID: 41998048. Full text: PubMed Central.