Fig. 6.

Design of the olive oil study. Eleven healthy volunteers participated in the study, they refrained from food and caffeine/alcohol-containing beverages for 12 h. At t = 0, 60 ml of venous whole blood was taken, followed by 50-ml oral ingestion of extra-virgin olive oil at t = 15 min. Another 60 ml of whole blood was drawn at t = 30 min. Whole blood was diluted 1:1 with RPMI medium, cells were plated and preincubated with 10 µM nicotine at t = 1 h, followed by 10 ng/ml LPS stimulation at t = 1.5 h. After 4 h, the medium was harvested and TNF levels were measured using ELISA.