Natural Holistic Healing & Holistic Products

In the present day, two things are happening to perpetuate the errors on coconut oil.

1. False and misleading pronouncements about coconut oil contributing to heart disease are still being actively propagated through the effort, and benefit of certain profit/political inspired interest groups.
2. Secondly, there are still remaining some popular misconceptions that are not well understood because of its saturated nature. It was assumed that coconut oil raised cholesterol and promoted heart disease.

Coconut Oil does not raise blood cholesterol levels. In brief, coconut oil mostly medium chain triglycerides (MCT’s) as opposed to vegetable oils, which are predominantly, long chain triglycerides (LCT’s). There are tremendous differences in saturated fats that most health professionals are not conscious of. Some of the facts that are overlooked are:

. Consumption of coconut oil had beneficial effects of increasing high-density lipoprotein (HDL) also known as “good” cholesterol.
. Coconut oil is rich in fatty acids that have natural antiviral, antibacterial properties. It contains monolaurin which is the same anti-microbial agent found in human mother’s milk.
. Coconut oil if processed accordingly has an antioxidant character.
. The MCT’s in coconut oil are completely metabolized and passed out of the body whereas the LCT’s in vegetables oils are stored as fat because the body cannot completely metabolized them.
. Caprylic and capric acids (medium chains), which are relatively and uniquely high in coconut oil, diminish the requirements of essential fatty acids and therefore compensate for the deficiency of linoleic.
. There are studies that link UV radiation (as in sunlight) with peroxidation of unsaturated fats, (BUT NOT saturated fats).
. The partially hydrogenated vegetable oils (i.e. oil seeds), which in turned to substitute coconut oil, have now been shown to contain trans fats raising bad cholesterol (LDL) and lowering good cholesterol (HDL).

Therefore the propaganda against coconut oil is wholly incorrect. In fact it has been proven to have just the opposite effect. The reason is that not all saturated fats are dealt with by the body in same manner.

Extracted from Coconut: processing, varieties and differences QFI 2001