Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and today I've got another classic episode
Speaker 1: from our archives. In this one, we looked at the
Speaker 1: phenomenon of coconut oil as a dietary trend. In a
Speaker 1: pretty brief span of time. It was labeled healthy, a
Speaker 1: paragon of foods, and then unhealthy, a gastronomical evil. But
Speaker 1: nutrition is always more complicated than that, Hey brain stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren Vogelbomb Here. Just a couple of short years ago,
Speaker 1: it seems that coconut oil could do no wrong. Practically
Speaker 1: out of nowhere, it was being touted incessantly as a superfood,
Speaker 1: thanks to claims that it helps burn fat and curbs hunger,
Speaker 1: among other impressive feats. Just recently, however, a Harvard professor
Speaker 1: fired the metaphorical shot heard round the world by saying
Speaker 1: that coconut oil is and I quote, pure poison. This
Speaker 1: came not too long after the release of updated guidelines
Speaker 1: by the American Heart Association, which urged people to steer
Speaker 1: clear of saturated fatty acids, among them coconut oil. The
Speaker 1: leap from superfood to pure poison is pretty big. Like
Speaker 1: Grand canyon big. So where does the truth lie. Not surprisingly,
Speaker 1: it's somewhere in the middle and could even change again
Speaker 1: once more research is done. We spoke by email with
Speaker 1: Melissa Majumdar, a registered dietitian and spokesperson for the Academy
Speaker 1: of Nutrition and Dietetics. She points out that despite popular
Speaker 1: and prevalent claims to the contrary, currently there is insufficient
Speaker 1: evidence to rate the effectiveness of coconut oil in helping
Speaker 1: with issues like diabetes, weight loss, chrome's disease, irritable bale syndrome,
Speaker 1: and thyroid problems. She explained, many of the health claims
Speaker 1: have been blown out of proportion and are not yet validated.
Speaker 1: At the end of the day, coconut oil may have
Speaker 1: some beneficial properties that were still exploring, but it's still
Speaker 1: a fat and should still fit onto our plate in moderation.
Speaker 1: Much of the confusion lies in our scientific understanding of
Speaker 1: how coconut oil operate. A tablespoon of coconut oil has
Speaker 1: the same number of calories as other oils like olive
Speaker 1: and canola, that is about one hundred and twenty. However,
Speaker 1: it also has thirteen grams of saturated fat, which is
Speaker 1: sixty three percent of the recommended daily dietary allowance of
Speaker 1: saturated fat in just a tablespoon. That was why people
Speaker 1: watching their cholesterol were advised to stay away from it
Speaker 1: in the past. In the last decade or so, some
Speaker 1: people began reclassifying coconut oil as healthy. Here's why. The
Speaker 1: proponents said that coconut oil has medium chain triclysrides or mctas,
Speaker 1: unlike most other oils which have long chain triclysrides. Let's
Speaker 1: break that down. Medium and short chain triclysrides are more
Speaker 1: quickly absorbed and sent into circulation in the body than
Speaker 1: long chain triclysrides. A two thousand three study had shown
Speaker 1: that mcts can speed up your metabolism, which helps you
Speaker 1: lose weight, while another study showed that mcts prevent hardening
Speaker 1: of the arteries, which lowers risk of heart attack and stroke. However,
Speaker 1: these studies were done with oils that were pure mcts
Speaker 1: and not with coconut oil, which is only partially composed
Speaker 1: of mcts. According to Mudjumdar, there's controversy over whether coconut
Speaker 1: oil behaves like a medium or long chain triglyceride. This
Speaker 1: distinction could be something of a moot point. However, since
Speaker 1: the body doesn't process coconut oil the way it would
Speaker 1: other oils containing mcts, Mudumdar said, what we do know
Speaker 1: is coconut oil is majority composed of a fatty acid
Speaker 1: called lauric acid, which contributes to both elevated HDL the
Speaker 1: good cholesterol, and elevated LDL, the bad cholesterol, and is
Speaker 1: therefore not a great idea for anyone battling high cholesterol
Speaker 1: or the family history of heart disease. Most folks should
Speaker 1: be aiming to get twenty five to thirty five percent
Speaker 1: of their total calories every day from fat. Majumdar, like
Speaker 1: most nutritionists, urges people to limit their daily saturated fats
Speaker 1: to seven to ten percent of that. Not surprisingly, it
Speaker 1: doesn't take much coconut oil to hit that marker. Majumdar
Speaker 1: notes coconut oil is more like butter calorie and fat
Speaker 1: wise than other oil. As a rule of thumb, the
Speaker 1: healthy fats are the ones that are liquid at room temperature,
Speaker 1: not solid. Instead of using coconut oil, looked fats like
Speaker 1: canola or olive oil. A tablespoon of conola oil has
Speaker 1: one gram of saturated fat. That's five percent of your
Speaker 1: recommended dietary allowance, while a tablespoon of olive oil has
Speaker 1: two grams, that's nine percent if you recommended dietary allowance.
Speaker 1: As to whether Majumdar agrees with the Harvard professor who
Speaker 1: vilified coconut oil, she said, I can't think of a
Speaker 1: food I would call poison. There's no food I'd want
Speaker 1: people to be afraid of, but I wouldn't put coconut
Speaker 1: oil in the healthy corner. We will say though, that
Speaker 1: while it may not be a health food, coconut oil
Speaker 1: is great for moisturizing your skin and soothing wounds and irritations.
Speaker 1: Today's episode is based on the article how Coconut oil
Speaker 1: Went from superfood to Pure Poison on HowStuffWorks dot com,
Speaker 1: written by A. Leo Hoyt. Brainstuff is production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio in partnership withhoustuffworks dot Com and is produced
Speaker 1: by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts from my heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.