Viruses are unique organisms in that they are near the center of the entire process that comprises life. Unlike pathogens that are attacked by the host’s immune system and cleared from the body as waste products, viruses often enter and remain in the body’s cells. As long as they are part of a human host, viruses threaten that person’s state of health.

If left alone and not endangered by an adverse environment, viruses are almost immortal. There is a chemical ingredient in the leaves of olive trees — the salt of a leaf’s chemically reacted hydrolysis product, elenolic acid — called calcium elenolate. When released, calcium elenolate is virucidal. If calcium elenolate has been absorbed into a host's tissues, the virus can’t invade cells because it’s killed by the presence of this virucidal substance.

Herpes

In 1969, Haraold E. Renis, Ph.D., a virologist with the Upjohn Company of Kalamazoo, Michigan, proved that a compound of oeluropein in the olive leaf is virucidal for all viruses against which it was tested. In particular, he showed that calcium elenolate kills the herpes virus. Dr. Renis wrote, “We have found calcium elenolate to be virucidal for a broad spectrum of viruses in vitro."

More than two decades later, the findings of Harold Renis were upheld by three biological scientists working at the Laboratoire de Pharmacognosie in Rennes, France. They found in 1992 that all of the herpes viruses were inhibited or killed outright by the active antimicrobial ingredients in the olive leaf.

Viruses and “The Common Cold”

Rhinovirus is responsible for more than 40% of cold symptoms. It is actually a family of more than 120 cold-inducing viruses and can be blamed for most of the 250 colds an average adult suffers during a lifetime. It scorns antibiotics but is very definitely killed by taking capsules of olive leaf extract.

The “Flu”

As reported to the American Society for Microbiology in August 1975, olive leaf extract inactivates all myxoviruses, the germs that cause a lower respiratory tract infection known as the “Flu” which may arises from any one of three different influenza viruses.

Upper Respiratory Infections

It is also used effectively to prevent or kill off an existing infection with the parainfluenza viruses that cause croup, bronchial disease and viral pneumonia.