Squalene in Olive Oil: Health Benefits and What the Research Shows
Squalene is the most abundant bioactive compound in extra virgin olive oil, and olive oil is the richest source of it in the everyday diet. It is a lipid the human body also makes for itself, and it concentrates in one place above all others: the surface of the skin, where it makes up about 12% of the lipids that coat it.
The research on squalene points in a consistent direction. Around 60% of the squalene eaten in food is absorbed. In laboratory kinetics it neutralises singlet oxygen, the reactive form of oxygen that sunlight generates, at a rate comparable to the synthetic antioxidant BHT. In a 20-week randomised trial in 102 older adults, daily squalene lowered total and LDL cholesterol. In animal studies it raised HDL cholesterol and paraoxonase 1, the antioxidant enzyme that travels on HDL.
Most extra virgin olive oils contain between 2,000 and 7,000 mg/kg of squalene. The Oleaphen 2025/2026 harvest measured 7,030 mg/kg, 40% above the mean of 28 olive cultivars screened by Beltrán and colleagues, and around 29 times the average for seed oils.
Squalene at a glance: what the research shows
Area | What the research found | Type of evidence |
Absorption from food | About 60% absorbed ¹ | Human study |
Skin surface lipids | About 12% of the total ² | Human physiology |
Singlet oxygen | Quenched at a rate comparable to BHT ³ | Laboratory kinetics |
Total and LDL cholesterol | Lowered over 20 weeks ⁴ | Randomised controlled trial |
Cholesterol turnover | Synthesis and excretion up, blood levels stable ¹ | Human study |
HDL cholesterol and paraoxonase 1 | Increased ⁵ | Animal study |
Cardiovascular risk factors | Promising, more human trials called for ⁶ | Systematic review |
The studies behind each row
¹ Strandberg, Tilvis and Miettinen, Journal of Lipid Research, 1990. 900 mg of squalene a day. Faecal analysis showed about 60% was absorbed. Cholesterol synthesis rose from 563 to 844 mg a day while blood cholesterol and triglycerides stayed unchanged.
² Pappas, Dermato-Endocrinology, 2009. Micera and colleagues, Antioxidants, 2020.
³ Kohno and colleagues, Biochimica et Biophysica Acta, 1995.
⁴ Chan and colleagues, Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, 1996. 102 older adults with raised cholesterol, double-blind, placebo-controlled, 860 mg a day.
⁵ Gabás-Rivera and colleagues, PLOS One, 2014.
⁶ Ibrahim and colleagues, Nutrients, 2020.
What squalene is
Squalene is a triterpene: a chain of 30 carbon atoms carrying six double bonds. It takes its name from Squalus, the shark genus whose liver oil it was first isolated from. Plants make it too, and the olive makes a great deal of it.
In the human body squalene is the last open-chain step on the way to cholesterol and the other sterols. Micera and colleagues, writing in Antioxidants in 2020, titled their review "Squalene: More than a Step toward Sterols", and the title sums up where the field has moved: squalene is now studied for what it does in its own right.
In olive oil, squalene belongs to the unsaponifiable fraction, the small share of the oil that is not fat. Unlike the olive polyphenols, which are partly water-soluble, squalene is a pure hydrocarbon and sits entirely in the fat. The two groups protect different phases of the same oil. Owen and colleagues measured them side by side as antioxidants in the same set of oils in 2000.
How much squalene is in olive oil?
The published literature places squalene in olive oil between 200 and 7,500 mg/kg, with most oils falling between 2,000 and 7,000 mg/kg, as Mallouchos and colleagues summarise in Molecules (2020).
Two things set the number. The first is the tree. Beltrán and colleagues screened virgin olive oils from 28 cultivars held in the World Olive Germplasm Collection and found a range from 1,100 to 8,390 mg/kg, with a mean of 5,020 mg/kg. Their conclusion was that squalene content has a genetic component. The second is processing. In the Owen data, refining took extra virgin olive oil from 4,240 mg/kg down to 3,400 mg/kg, and seed oils started from 240 mg/kg.
We farm early-harvest Olives for polyphenols, yet by weight squalene is the compound the oil gives us most of. In 2025 it outweighed the total polyphenols by more than three to one: 7,030 mg/kg against 2,236 mg/kg.
1. Squalene from food is absorbed
A compound only matters if the body takes it up. In 1990 Strandberg, Tilvis and Miettinen gave volunteers 900 mg of squalene a day with meals and tracked it through the gut. Faecal analysis showed that about 60% of the dietary squalene was absorbed. Micera and colleagues cite the same order of absorption in their 2020 review.
Once absorbed, squalene joins a pool the body already maintains, and much of that pool sits in the skin, supplied by the sebaceous glands.
2. Squalene and the skin
Human skin is coated in a thin film of lipids, and squalene makes up about 12% of it, as Pappas described in Dermato-Endocrinology in 2009. That share is unusual. De Luca and Valacchi, reviewing skin surface lipids in Mediators of Inflammation in 2010, noted that squalene is absent from other human tissues at this level and absent from the sebum of other primates.
The reason becomes clearer in the chemistry. The skin surface is the first place sunlight meets the body, and sunlight on skin generates singlet oxygen, a highly reactive form of oxygen. In 1995 Kohno and colleagues measured how fast squalene quenches it.
The rate constant was comparable to that of BHT, a synthetic antioxidant widely used in the food industry, and well above that of other skin surface lipids. Squalene also proved resistant to peroxidation itself.
The authors concluded that squalene may act as an efficient quencher protecting the human skin surface from lipid peroxidation caused by ultraviolet light and sun exposure.
Human skin, in other words, reserves a large share of its surface chemistry for squalene, and squalene is one of the fastest singlet-oxygen quenchers among the lipids found there.
3. Squalene and cholesterol
Squalene sits upstream of cholesterol, so the natural expectation is that eating more of it would raise blood cholesterol. The human studies show something more interesting.
In the Strandberg study, 900 mg a day of squalene increased cholesterol synthesis by about half, from 563 to 844 mg a day. The body answered by excreting more: faecal cholesterol and bile acids both rose. Blood cholesterol and triglycerides stayed where they were. The extra flux went out, not into circulation.
Chan and colleagues then ran a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial in 102 older adults with raised cholesterol, published in the Journal of Clinical Pharmacology in 1996. After an eight-week placebo lead-in, participants took 860 mg of squalene a day for 20 weeks. Squalene significantly lowered total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol. The same trial also tested squalene alongside a low dose of pravastatin, and the combination lowered total and LDL cholesterol further than either on its own.
860 mg is a concentrated dose, roughly the squalene in 120 g of our oil. What these trials establish is the direction of the effect. In 2020 Ibrahim and colleagues brought the cardiovascular evidence together in a systematic review in Nutrients and concluded that squalene shows potential for cardiovascular health, calling for further controlled human studies, particularly of plant-derived squalene.
4. HDL and paraoxonase in animal studies
The work of the Osada group at the University of Zaragoza has taken squalene into HDL function. In 2014 Gabás-Rivera and colleagues reported in PLOS One that dietary squalene increased HDL cholesterol and paraoxonase 1, and decreased oxidative stress, in mice. Paraoxonase 1 is the enzyme carried on HDL that protects lipoproteins from oxidation, the same process the EU claim for olive oil polyphenols addresses.
The same group reviewed the field in Molecular Nutrition and Food Research in 2018 (Lou-Bonafonte and colleagues), gathering the antioxidant and lipid-related actions of squalene reported across cell, animal and human studies. These are animal findings and are reported as such. They also point to where the next human trials are likely to look.
5. Keeping squalene intact until the dose
Squalene is a quencher of singlet oxygen, and light is what generates singlet oxygen. An oil sitting in a clear bottle on a bright shelf is spending its squalene on its own protection. The same is true, faster, of its polyphenols.
This is why each Oleaphen dose is a 5 ml aluminium monodose: opaque, filled under nitrogen, sealed away from oxygen and held in a cold chain from the mill to dispatch. Aluminium lets no light through at all. The packaging choice is about keeping every measured compound, squalene included, at the level the lab reported.
What squalene adds to the olive oil story
Most writing on olive oil and health, ours included, concentrates on the polyphenols, and with good reason: the heart health trials and the EU claim rest on them. Squalene is the other half of the unsaponifiable story. It is the largest single bioactive compound in the oil and it is well absorbed. Human skin then puts it to work as a front-line antioxidant.
When comparing oils, the squalene figure belongs on the lab report next to the polyphenols. Unrefined extra virgin olive oil from a high-squalene cultivar, protected from light, is where it is found in the largest amounts.
Nicolas Netien is Co-founder and Chief Scientist of Oleaphen. He holds the world record for the highest polyphenol concentration measured in olive oil (4,947 mg/kg, 2018 harvest) and is a Knight of the Order of Agricultural Merit of the French Republic.
Frequently asked questions
What is squalene in olive oil?
Squalene is a natural triterpene, a 30-carbon lipid, found in the unsaponifiable fraction of olive oil, the small share of the oil that is not fat. It is the most abundant bioactive compound in extra virgin olive oil, and olive oil is the richest source of squalene in the everyday diet. The human body also makes squalene as the precursor to cholesterol and other sterols, and it makes up about 12% of human skin surface lipids.
How much squalene is in extra virgin olive oil?
Published values range from 200 to 7,500 mg/kg, with most oils between 2,000 and 7,000 mg/kg. Owen and colleagues (Food and Chemical Toxicology, 2000) measured an average of 4,240 mg/kg in extra virgin olive oil, 3,400 mg/kg in refined olive oil and 240 mg/kg in seed oils. Beltrán and colleagues (European Journal of Lipid Science and Technology, 2016) found a mean of 5,020 mg/kg across 28 olive cultivars. The Oleaphen 2025/2026 harvest measured 7,030 mg/kg.
Which olive oil has the most squalene?
Unrefined extra virgin olive oil from a high-squalene cultivar. Beltrán and colleagues showed that squalene content has a genetic component, with cultivars ranging from 1,100 to 8,390 mg/kg, and Owen and colleagues showed that refining lowers it. The only way to know the figure for a given oil is a laboratory report that lists squalene separately.
Is the squalene in olive oil absorbed by the body?
Yes. In a human study by Strandberg, Tilvis and Miettinen (Journal of Lipid Research, 1990), faecal analysis showed that about 60% of dietary squalene was absorbed.
What does squalene do for the skin?
Squalene makes up about 12% of human skin surface lipids (Pappas, Dermato-Endocrinology, 2009). Kohno and colleagues (Biochimica et Biophysica Acta, 1995) found that squalene quenches singlet oxygen, the reactive oxygen generated by sunlight, at a rate comparable to the antioxidant BHT, and concluded it may protect the skin surface from lipid peroxidation caused by ultraviolet light.
Does squalene raise cholesterol?
The human studies suggest not. In Strandberg and colleagues (1990), 900 mg a day of squalene increased cholesterol synthesis and excretion while blood cholesterol stayed unchanged. In a randomised controlled trial by Chan and colleagues (Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, 1996), 860 mg a day for 20 weeks lowered total and LDL cholesterol in 102 older adults.
Is there an EU health claim for squalene?
No. Squalene has no authorised EU health claim, so its effects are reported as research findings. The authorised claim for olive oil covers polyphenols: olive oil polyphenols contribute to the protection of blood lipids from oxidative stress, for oils supplying at least 5 mg of hydroxytyrosol and its derivatives per 20 g daily.
Is olive oil squalene the same as shark squalene?
It is the same molecule. Squalene was first isolated from shark liver oil, which is where its name comes from, but the olive produces the identical compound. Extra virgin olive oil is the richest plant source in the everyday diet.
Citations
Beltrán G, Bucheli ME, Aguilera MP, Belaj A, Jimenez A. Squalene in virgin olive oil: screening of variability in olive cultivars. Eur J Lipid Sci Technol. 2016. doi:10.1002/ejlt.201500295
Chan P, Tomlinson B, Lee CB, Lee YS. Effectiveness and safety of low-dose pravastatin and squalene, alone and in combination, in elderly patients with hypercholesterolemia. J Clin Pharmacol. 1996;36(5):422-427. doi:10.1002/j.1552-4604.1996.tb05029.x
De Luca C, Valacchi G. Surface lipids as multifunctional mediators of skin responses to environmental stimuli. Mediators Inflamm. 2010;2010:321494. doi:10.1155/2010/321494
Gabás-Rivera C, Barranquero C, Martínez-Beamonte R, et al. Dietary squalene increases high density lipoprotein-cholesterol and paraoxonase 1 and decreases oxidative stress in mice. PLoS One. 2014;9(8):e104224. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0104224
Ibrahim NI, Fairus S, Zulfarina MS, Naina Mohamed I. The efficacy of squalene in cardiovascular disease risk: a systematic review. Nutrients. 2020;12(2):414. doi:10.3390/nu12020414
Kohno Y, Egawa Y, Itoh S, Nagaoka S, Takahashi M, Mukai K. Kinetic study of quenching reaction of singlet oxygen and scavenging reaction of free radical by squalene in n-butanol. Biochim Biophys Acta. 1995;1256(1):52-56. doi:10.1016/0005-2760(95)00005-W
Lou-Bonafonte JM, Martínez-Beamonte R, Sanclemente T, et al. Current insights into the biological action of squalene. Mol Nutr Food Res. 2018. doi:10.1002/mnfr.201800136
Mallouchos A, Mikrou T, Pantelidou E, et al. Varietal and geographical discrimination of Greek monovarietal extra virgin olive oils based on squalene, tocopherol, and fatty acid composition. Molecules. 2020;25(17):3818. doi:10.3390/molecules25173818
Micera M, Botto A, Geddo F, et al. Squalene: more than a step toward sterols. Antioxidants. 2020;9(8):688. doi:10.3390/antiox9080688
Owen RW, Mier W, Giacosa A, Hull WE, Spiegelhalder B, Bartsch H. Phenolic compounds and squalene in olive oils: the concentration and antioxidant potential of total phenols, simple phenols, secoiridoids, lignans and squalene. Food Chem Toxicol. 2000;38(8):647-659. doi:10.1016/S0278-6915(00)00061-2
Pappas A. Epidermal surface lipids. Dermatoendocrinol. 2009;1(2):72-76. doi:10.4161/derm.1.2.7811
Strandberg TE, Tilvis RS, Miettinen TA. Metabolic variables of cholesterol during squalene feeding in humans: comparison with cholestyramine treatment. J Lipid Res. 1990;31(9):1637-1643. doi:10.1016/S0022-2275(20)42347-8
Commission Regulation (EU) No 432/2012 of 16 May 2012 establishing a list of permitted health claims made on foods.
