How can coconut oil be good for you

But as with all cooking oils, make sure to use it in moderation. A detailed guide to healthy cooking oils. There are several things to keep in mind, including how stable these oils are when they're heated. People often consider deep-fried foods unhealthy, but it depends partially on the type of oil used.

Find out which options are healthy and why. Coconut oil is a tropical fat that is claimed to have various benefits for health. Here are 13 human studies on coconut oil and its health effects. You might know that coconut oil is good for you, but you may not know how much to take or how to eat it.

This article has the answers. This article explains everything you need to know about coconut oil and hair: why you might want to try it, how to use it, and more. Coconut oil is a type of fat that has many health benefits. This article looks at the evidence to determine whether coconut oil is also good for your….

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The chemical transformation makes them hard for our bodies to process. They raise levels of bad LDL cholesterol and lower good HDL cholesterol, increasing the risk of developing heart disease and strokes; they are also linked to type 2 diabetes. In contrast, unsaturated fats are pretty universally accepted as beneficial because they raise levels of good HDL cholesterol. That leaves saturated fats somewhere in the middle.

Since the s, the message from public health bodies has been that they raise bad cholesterol, fur up arteries and increase the risk of strokes, heart disease and heart attacks. So where does the idea of coconut oil, one of the richest sources of saturated fat available, being a health food come from? One branch of evidence often cited by the pro-coconut oil lobby is work done by Dr Marie-Pierre St-Onge, associate professor of nutritional medicine at Cornell University Medical School, in the early s.

Her team was looking at the impact on health of medium-chain triglycerides MCTs , a form of fat molecule that has shorter chains of fatty acid than most and which is found in coconut oil in higher concentrations than any other natural food.

In , her team published research comparing the effects of diets rich in MCTs or long-chain triglycerides LCTs on 24 overweight men. She found that eating more MCTs over the month-long study led to losing an extra pound in weight compared with those eating a similar amount of LCTs.

Further studies had similar findings. In , she showed that a diet containing MCTs led to more weight loss than a similar diet containing olive oil. It was a fascinating result and a reminder that not all saturated fats are the same. And it was leapt upon by coconut oil supporters.

But the link from these studies to coconut oil was arguably a leap too far. The rest are traditional LCTs. From recent studies, it seems that it is not. One reason for this cholesterol boost is likely to be the high level of a substance called lauric acid in coconut oil. A meta-analysis of 60 trials in found lauric acid increased good HDL cholesterol. The same analysis found it also raised harmful LDL cholesterol.

There is nothing unusual about coconut oil in this respect — all saturated fats raise both good HDL and bad LDL cholesterol levels. What seems to matter is the ratio of these two types of cholesterol in our blood. However, health researchers agree that studies on coconut products are small and too short in duration to prove a long-term benefit with weight loss or disease.

The American Heart Association and U. Coconut oil has as many calories as other fats with calories and 14 grams of fat per tablespoon. Eating too many calories from any source can cause weight gain, which increases disease risk. Coconut oil may be a better choice than animal fats and trans fats, but is not as heart-healthy as liquid plant oils such as olive and canola oils that are rich in monounsaturated fats.

Based on the current evidence, coconut oil is neither a superfood nor a poison. Rather, its role in the diet falls somewhere in between. Coconut oil has a unique flavor and is best consumed in small amounts, as a periodic alternative to other vegetable oils like olive or canola that are rich in unsaturated fat.

This dietary choice should be made in the context of an overall healthy dietary pattern, and within the recommended limits for saturated fat intake.

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My suspicion is coconut oil is great in places where nutritional poverty causes people to die early like India because it provides calories. Horses for course. It may well stop you starving in parts of India, but it will probably kill you off early in places where less people starve to death.. An earlier article on the illusory benefits of coconut oil had respondents saying it was clearly wrong because the life expectancy in Goa and Kerala, where a lot of coconut oil was consumed , at between 70 and 74, was higher than for may other parts of India, and therefore Americans should consume it by the backload.

Such commentators failed to mention that US life expectancy at the time was significantly HIGHER than in Kerala or Goa, and that in the coconut oil avoiders of Scandinavia, Singapore and Australia, for example, it was a full 10 to fifteen years longer still! Coconut oil fadists are condemned by their own figures. They indicate that it is a great product to consume in quantity if you want to die early!

When I made the switch to following a paleo diet using only avocado and coconut oils, my good cholesterol went up 25 pts and my bad w,ent down. My dr asked what I did and I told him. I use coconut oil daily in my coffee and for baking and cooking. I would imagine the overall change in your diet had more of an impact on your cholesterol levels than which oils you used. Increasing fiber, decreasing refined sugars and losing weight all positively impact cholesterol levels.