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Coconut Oil
Lose weight? Cure Alzheimer's? Clog your arteries?
by BY DAVID SCHARDT, June 2012
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"Superpowers" are what coconut oil has, Dr. Mehmet Oz told his TV audience last year. The benefits of coconut oil are "near miraculous," says Internet osteopath and entrepreneur Joseph Mercola.
"Protect against cancer," "dissolve kidney stones," and "lose excess body fat," promises a coconut oil distributor on its Web site. And, if you believe a new book and the Internet buzz, coconut oil might even cure Alzheimer's disease.
Thinking about switching to this hot tropical fat? Here’s what you need to know.
What makes coconut oil stand out from other oils?
First, 92 percent of its fat is saturated. That makes coconut oil far more saturated than most other oils and fats. Olive and soybean oils, for example, are about 15 percent saturated, while beef fat is about 50 percent saturated and butter is 63 percent saturated. (Only palm kernel oil, at 82 percent saturated, rivals coconut oil.)
All those saturated chemical bonds explain why coconut oil is solid at room temperature and doesn't go rancid quickly. That makes it attractive to many candy makers, who use it in chocolate, yogurt, and other coatings that don’t melt until they hit your mouth. (It's also why some vegans—who eat no meat, fish, eggs, or dairy foods—use it as a butter substitute.)
Coconut oil is also unusual because it contains a high percentage of medium-chain triglycerides, or MCTs.
Most oils consist entirely of long-chain triglycerides, or LCTs, which are more than 12 carbons long. Soybean oil, for example, is 100 percent LCTs. Medium-chain triglycerides are 6 to 12 carbons long. Coconut oil contains roughly 40 percent LCTs and 60 percent MCTs.
The difference matters because our bodies metabolize MCTs differently than LCTs.
"MCTs are transported directly from the intestinal tract to the liver, where they're likely to be directly burned off as fuel and raise the metabolic rate slightly," explains researcher Marie-Pierre St-Onge of Columbia University. That means less is available to be circulated throughout the body and deposited in fat tissues.
So if you use coconut oil instead of other oils, will those extra pounds melt away?