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Quick Summary tl;dr
Coconut oils is 65% MCTs, which are burned efficiently for fuel.
Coconut oil has antimicrobial and antioxidant properties.
It’s important to only purchase virgin or raw coconut, never refined.
Coconut is controversial. Some people say it’s a superfood, others say it will poison your heart health. Why the confusion?
Fat Profile of Coconut
Let’s start by discussing the unique fat profile of coconut because, although coconut is almost entirely saturated fat, the saturated fats in coconut are very different from those in milk or meat.
Coconut oil is ~15% caproic, caprylic, and capric acid. These saturated fatty acids are between six and ten carbons in length and are called medium-chain triglycerides (MCTs).
About 50% of the fat in coconut is lauric acid, a 12-carbon fatty acid. ( Dayrit, 2015) While it is sometimes commercially classified as a long-chain fatty acid, it is metabolically classified as an MCT as well. Isn’t that confusing? Sorry about that. Bottom line, about 65% of the fat in coconut oil is MCTs, and I’ll explain why that matters in the next section.
The remaining ~35% is mostly long-chain fatty acids, including myristic, palmitic, and stearic acids (14 - 18 carbons). These are the typical fatty acids found in dairy and meat. So, as you can see, coconut is not like other sources of saturated fat.
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Medium Chain Triglycerides are an Excellent Fuel
What makes the 65% of saturated fats that are in coconut oil, the MCTs, unique?
Longer chain fatty acids, both saturated and unsaturated, begin their journey through the body in boats called chylomicrons. While in the intestines, long-chain fats get packaged into chylomicrons, then are transported via lymphatic vessels and get squirted into the bloodstream at the lymphatic duct, where the vein that runs near your left collar bone meets the vein coming down from the left side of your head.
Next, when the long-chain fatty acids get into cells, they need special transporters and transformers (carnitine shuttle) to allow them to get burned as fuel.
MCTs are different. Unlike most other fats, MCTs begin their journey by flowing, not through lymphatics and the lymphatic duct into main blood circulation, but directly through the “portal vein” to the liver. (Also, as a fun fact, MCTs are less dependent on bile acids for digestion and better absorbed directly in the stomach, which makes them easier to absorb for people with bile acid or pancreatic insufficiency.)
In this way, they are more like carbohydrates or proteins than fat. Perhaps more importantly, MCTs don’t require transporters and transformers to allow them to get burned by cells, which means that they are excellent fuels!
If that’s all very technical for you, the take away remains, MCTs are great easy-access fat fuel. Here are some data: In one human study, people were given a series of different fatty acids — palmitic, stearic, oleic, elaidic, linoleic, linolenic, and lauric — that were each labeled with carbon-13. ( DeLany et al, 2000) This just means that the researchers were able to trace how much of each fat was burned over the following nine hours. What they observed is that lauric acid was burned at a much greater rate than the other fats over this time period. You can see this very clearly on the graph, represented by the outstanding area under the curve in the back row.
Coconut oil is 65% Medium Chain Triglycerides, which get burned more quickly than longer chain fats because they don’t require the carnitine shuttle system.
Benefits of Lauric Acid in Coconut
Lauric acid, being the main MCT in coconut oil, deserves further details. Lauric acid itself can also activate fat-burning enzymes in the PPAR family, including PPARα and PPARγ. In this way, lauric acid acts similar to the monounsaturated fat, oleic acid, found in extra virgin olive oil, avocado, and macadamia nuts.
Additionally, lauric acid and monolaurin (lauric acid attached to glycerol backbone) have potent antiviral, antifungal, and antibacterial properties, including against C. difficile, H. pylori, Candida, Clostridium, and E. Coli.
It’s actually pretty cool! Pathogenic microbes aren’t easily able to evolve resistance to lauric acid and monolaurin because they work through three mechanisms: destruction of gram-positive bacterial cell membranes and lipid-coated viruses, interference with microbial signal transduction and transcription, and stabilization of human cell membranes. This is just me getting on my nerdy soap box, but the simple explanation is that lauric acid may be protective against pathogenic bacterial infections.
Interestingly, lauric acid and monolaurin are among the strongest antimicrobials in human breast milk. ( Gardner et al, 2017) Evidently, our evolutionary biology would not be trying to poison our infantile microbiomes, so it’s fair to assume that lauric acid is protective for the gut at best, and neutral at worst.
The lauric acid in coconut oil is also found in human breast milk. It may protect against H. pylori, Candida, Clostridium, and E. Coli.
Refined vs Virgin Coconut Oil and Antioxidants
Another important source of the coconut controversy comes down whether the oil is refined or virgin. ( Seneviratne et al, 2008)
When oil is refined, it loses 85% of the disease-fighting polyphenols, an impressive list that include gallic acid, caffeic acid, p-coumaric acid, ferulic acid, vanillic acid, catechin, rosmarinic acid, myricetin glucoside, quercetin, and kaempferol. When recommending coconut, we are specifically recommending virgin or raw coconut.
As an example of one basic science study, treating colon cells with 100 μg of virgin coconut oil polyphenols protected the against oxidative stress-induced cell death induced by 75%. ( Illam et al, 2017) The effect was due both to the direct antioxidant effects of the above list of polyphenols and also their ability to upregulate the Nrf2 system, which controls the expression of the body’s own antioxidant enzymes.
In humans, the list of potential health benefits attributed to “virgin” and “raw” coconut products include the following: antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, protection against infection, improved gut health, and increased HDL cholesterol. ( Khaw et al, 2018)
How To Use Coconut in Recipes
There are several ways you can incorporate coconut into your diet — in the form of coconut meat, coconut oil, coconut milk, coconut yogurt and cream, coconut flour and coconut butter (also known as coconut manna):
There are also so many creative ways you can use raw coconut in you diet. Here are just 15 recipes from our new book, The New Mediterranean Diet Cookbook that incorporate virgin coconut oil, coconut cream, or coconut butter. Yummy!
- Breakfasts and snacks: Crunchy Vanilla Protein Bars, Spiced Antioxidant Granola Clusters, Creamy Cinnamon Porridge, Fat-Fueled Cereal, Strawberry Collagen Smoothie, or Ultimate Nut Butter
- Soups: Chilled Avocado Pesto Soup and Creamy Wild Mushroom Soup
- Dinners: Salmon Brain Bowl, Carb-less Crab Cakes, Coconut Shrimp Skillet, Halloumi Curry Skillet, or Moroccan Lamb Tagine
- Desserts: Chocolate Hazelnut Powerhouse Truffles and Protein Halva Slices
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