Gwyneth Paltrow waves it around her mouth to kill bacteria. Kourtney Kardashian adds it to her recipes as a metabolism booster and immune system aid. Olympic gold medalist Apolo Ohno sprinkles it at dinner the night before a big speed skating race, to give himself an energy boost the next day. Health and wellness influencers, from Instagram to The Dr Oz Show, are touting coconut oil as a “miracle” cure-all for skin problems, heart disease, and weight loss. But are its myriad health benefits all it’s cracked up to be?
In the latest episode of Gastropod, co-hosts Cynthia Graber and Nicola Twilley explore the story behind the coconut’s global dominance, from its spread across the tropics to the healthy Paleo-fueled coconut oil craze.
Historically, medical advice has warned consumers to steer clear of coconut oil, because it is made up primarily of saturated fatty acids: it is 92% saturated fat compared to 63% in butter. The science on how saturated fat consumption contributes to heart disease is complex and evolving — is one of several interrelated dietary risk factors, and its impact is difficult to decipher from diet and lifestyle in general. That said, all major medical institutions, the World Health Organizationthe American Heart Associationand others recommend consuming less.
In recent years, however, coconut oil fans have claimed that coconut oil can actually prevent heart disease and help with weight loss. These claims are based on the idea that coconut oil is rich in medium chain triglycerides (MCTs). Fats and oils are built from fatty acids, which can be classified in two ways. The first is whether or not they are saturated: for example, olive oil is not saturated, butter is saturated, and so is coconut oil. But another way to classify fats is by the number of carbon atoms attached to their tails: short, medium, or long chain. Narrowly two-thirds of the fatty acids in butterfor example, they are made up of fatty acids with long tails.
the fatty acids in coconut oil, by contrast, are nearly 50 percent lauric acid, which has fewer carbon atoms, and is labeled medium chain. (Lauric acid is, coincidentally, a major component of breast milk, a fact that coconut oil aficionados also like to mention as a reason why it must be good for you.)
The chain length of fatty acids affects how our body processes them. When it comes to digestion, the the differences are super technical, but basically the shorter chain fatty acids seem to go quickly to the liver and be metabolized much faster, while the longer chain fatty acids circulate in the bloodstream before being broken down. These differences can affect whether they are used immediately for energy or stored as fat, as well as influence overall blood cholesterol levels.
Fans claim that, thanks to its MCT content, eating coconut oil helps you feel full faster, that it is converted into energy instead of being stored in fat, and that it can raise your levels of HDL, also known as “good cholesterol.” “. thereby reducing your risk of heart attack and stroke. The reality, however, is almost the opposite.
One problem is that the science on the benefits of MCT oil in humans is still very limited and inconclusive, to say the least. A few small studies, one in humans and one in mice, show some small benefits: Men feel slightly fuller, mice have slightly lower cholesterol. But the articles that have analyzed the totality of the science to date on the subject have concluded thatwhen it comes to weight loss, “more research is needed” and that “MCT oil does not affect total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, or HDL cholesterol levels.”
But there is an even bigger problem. Studies showing positive benefits of MCTs use synthesized MCT oil, not coconut oil, and they are not the same. “When you talk about MCT, you are talking about a structure; when you talk about coconut oil, you are talking about someone else, ”she explained to Gastropod Jane Mara Block, an expert in fats and oils at the Federal University of Santa Catarina in Brazil.
MCT oil can be synthesized from coconut oil, sure, but the final structure is made up of fatty acids that are different from and shorter than those that make up coconut oil. The fatty acids in coconut oil are not only longer, but most are long-chain fatty acids or act like them. It turns out that when digested, lauric acid actually behaves metabolically like a long-chain fatty acid.
Block told Gastropod that it’s not really possible to extrapolate the benefits of MCTs maybe they have (which are already on shaky ground) to coconut oil, because their structures are different and that’s why our body processes them differently. In fact, the research that exists when consuming coconut oil, instead of MCTs, shows that it actually raises total cholesterolincluding both HDL Y “bad” LDL cholesterol.
Even some of the smaller benefits of coconut oil are largely unsupported. Coconut oil is often claimed to be antimicrobial, which is why Paltrow uses it for “oil pulling,” a technique that promises to reduce oral bacteria. This claim is based on the presence of a chemical in coconut oil that some studies suggest it can inhibit the growth of certain bacteria in humans when used, for example, as a mouthwash. But these studies have looked at the synthesized chemical rather than the coconut oil itself.
As you may have noticed, all of these claims share a common problem: the magical properties attributed to coconut oil stem from the benefits derived from its individual components, rather than the coconut oil as a whole.
This lack of context also applies to entire food cultures. Coconut oil fans like to point out that people who eat a lot of coconut, whether in Polynesia, India, or the Philippines, have lower cholesterol levels and fewer cases of heart disease than people in Western countries. However, people in these places tend to eat the oil as part of the coconut meat, which also contains a lot of fiber and a variety of minerals, and also tend to eat diets that contain less sugar, less meat, and fewer processed foods. than the standard western diet. With all these other factors at play, it’s simply impossible to attribute your health to coconut oil.
“The whole thing, if you start to put it in context, it starts to get a little bit complicated,” says Block. “And people don’t want that. People want quick and fast. People want a miracle.” If coconut oil is some kind of miracle, Block told Gastropod, it’s mostly a marketing miracle.
If you think their oil is the first time coconut has sparked controversy, buckle up for coconut water wars, a coconut cult, and even some good old-fashioned Monty Python in the latest episode of Gastropod. Follow us and subscribe to join us as we explore how and why we all went coconut for coconuts.
