Despite encouraging advances in prevention and treatment of atherothrombosis, cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains a major cause of deaths and disability worldwide and will continue to grow mainly due to the increase in incidence in low and middle income countries (LMIC). In Europe and the United States of America (USA), coronary heart disease (CHD) mortality rates have decreased since the mid-1990s due to improvements in acute care, however the prevalence of CHD is increasing largely in part due to the overall aging of the population, increased prevalence of cardiovascular (CV) risk factors, and improved survival of patients after a CV event. Data from clinical trials has consistently proven the efficacy of pharmacologic interventions with aspirin, statins, and blood pressure (BP)-lowering agents in reducing the risk of CV events and total mortality in the ever growing pool of patients in secondary prevention. However, large gaps between indicated therapy and prescribed medication can be observed worldwide, with very low rates of use of effective therapies in LMIC countries. Adherence to medication is very poor in chronic patients, especially those treated with multiple pharmacologic agents, and has been directly correlated to a greater incidence of recurrent CV events and increase in direct and indirect healthcare costs. In this article, we review the global burden of CV disease, status of secondary prevention therapy and major barriers for treatment adherence.

Oleanolic acid (OA), a natural component of many plant food and medicinal herbs, is endowed with a wide range of pharmacological properties whose therapeutic potential has only partly been exploited until now. Throughout complex and multifactorial mechanisms, OA exerts beneficial effects against diabetes and metabolic syndrome. It improves insulin response, preserves functionality and survival of β-cells, and protects against diabetes complications. OA may directly modulate enzymes connected to insulin biosynthesis, secretion, and signaling. However, its major contributions appear to be derived from the interaction with important transduction pathways, and many of its effects are consistently related to activation of the transcription factor Nrf2. Doing that, OA induces the expression of antioxidant enzymes and phase II response genes, blocks NF-κB, and represses the polyol pathway, AGEs production, and hyperlipidemia. The management of type 2 diabetes requires an integrated approach, which includes the early intervention to prevent or delay the disease progression, and the use of therapies to control glycemia and lipidemia in its late stages. In this sense, the use of functional foods or drugs containing OA is, undoubtedly, an interesting path.

This work establishes a new procedure for the extraction and analysis of pentacyclic triterpenes, with which fruits and leaves from three Spanish olive cultivars ("Picual", "Hojiblanca", and "Arbequina") has been studied. The leaf contains important amounts of oleanolic acid (3.0-3.5% DW), followed by significant concentrations of maslinic acid and minor levels of ursolic acid, erythrodiol, and uvaol. The abundance and profile of triterpenoids change during the leaf ontogeny. In the fruit, triterpenes are exclusively located in the epicarp at concentrations 30-fold lower than that in the leaf. Maslinic acid is the main triterpenoid, only accompanied of oleanolic acid. Along the ripening the levels of these triterpenes decreased. All the analyzed leaves and fruits come from the same agricultural estate, with identical climate and culturing conditions. For this reason, the found differences could majorly be attributable to the genetic factors of the olive cultivars.

Cyanide is stoichiometrically produced as a coproduct of the ethylene biosynthesis pathway and is detoxified by b-cyanoalanine synthase enzymes. The molecular and phenotypical analysis of T-DNA insertion mutants of the mitochondrial b-cyanoalanine synthase CYS-C1 suggests that discrete accumulation of cyanide is not toxic for the plant and does not alter mitochondrial respiration rates but does act as a strong inhibitor of root hair development. The cys-c1 null allele is defective in root hair formation and accumulates cyanide in root tissues. The root hair defect is phenocopied in wild-type plants by the exogenous addition of cyanide to the growth medium and is reversed by the addition of hydroxocobalamin or by genetic complementation with the CYS-C1 gene. Hydroxocobalamin not only recovers the root phenotype of the mutant but also the formation of reactive oxygen species at the initial step of root hair tip growth. Transcriptional profiling of the cys-c1 mutant reveals that cyanide accumulation acts as a repressive signal for several genes encoding enzymes involved in cell wall rebuilding and the formation of the root hair tip as well as genes involved in ethylene signaling and metabolism. Our results demonstrate that mitochondrial b-cyanoalanine synthase activity is essential to maintain a low level of cyanide for proper root hair development.

Olives (Olea europaea cv. Picual) used for oil production were stored for 60 days at three different temperatures (ambient, 5 °C, and 8 °C) in containers used for fruit storage, each with a capacity for 64 kg of olives. The quality of both the fruits and the oils extracted from these fruits was analyzed. Fruit storage at 5 °C maintained the initial sensorial and chemical qualities of the oil for 45 days, but at 8 °C, these qualities were maintained for only 15 days. At room temperature, these qualities deteriorated just after 7 days of storage.

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Olive leaves are an agricultural residue resulting from the pruning of olive trees that may be considered an available industrial byproduct. The olive tree is biochemically characterized for the presence of secoiridoids, carbohydrates, sugar alcohols, and terpenoids. Oleuropein, especially abundant in the olive leaves (up to 14% DW), have the greatest biological interest.The polyalcohol mannitol, which represents approx. a 3% of the leaf dry weight, has been used by the food and pharmaceutical industries as excipient, due to its high sweetness and poor caloric power. Likewise, oleanolic acid is present in the olive leaf in significant concentrations (≈3% DW) and has been endorsed with very important pharmacological properties. In this work we describe a novel procedure for the determination of the major bioactive compounds from the olive leaf by SPE and HPLC. These bioactive compounds were determined in the four most significant Spanish Olea europaea cultivars. Olive leaf contains important amounts of oleanolic acid, oleuropein and mannitol, whose recovery could be interesting for the pharmaceutical, cosmetics and food industries. The analytical methodology presented in this work would serve as a very suitable tool for the control of any industrial process designed to obtain these high added-value compounds.