benefits of coconut oil

How Coconut Oil Benefits Your Health

For thousands of years, both Ayurvedic and Indian folkloric medicine use coconut oil as a traditional remedy for almost all illnesses.
Gradually, modern medical science discovers that coconut oil can actually protect against heart disease (yes, contrary to what we're led to believe), diabetes, cancers, liver and kidney diseases, osteoporosis, dental decay and skin infections. It also relieves symptoms associated with illnesses like pancreatitis, cystic fibrosis (difficulty in breathing and absorbing nutrients), chronic inflammation, prostate enlargement, Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, stomach ulcers, constipation, psoriasis, eczema and dermatitis.
Coconut oil continues to "show off" its awesome health benefits and astonish doctors by its powerful ability to kill viruses (e.g. influenza — aka flu, hepatitis C, herpes, measles), bacteria (e.g. pneumonia, urinary tract infection), fungi and yeast (e.g. candida, ringworm, thrush), which are otherwise resistant to drugs and antibiotics.
Yes, as unbelievable as it sounds, right now some doctors are including coconut oil in their treatments against the world's most deadly incurable terminator — HIV / AIDS. The super antimicrobes in coconut oil can rip the HIV viruses apart and kill them on the spot.
According to a first clinical study on the effectiveness of coconut oil against HIV virus carried out in 2000 by Cornrado Dayrit, M.D., emeritus professor of pharmacology at the University of the Philippines and former president of the National Academy of Science and Technology in the Philippines, 9 out of 14 HIV patients after six months of treatment with using the antimicrobial acids found only in coconut oil had a decreased viral load (the number of viruses in the blood).
In 1996, an AIDS patient Chris Dafoe of Cloverdale, Indiana, having a HIV viral load of 600,000 copies — an indication of rampant HIV infection, after eating cooked coconut for breakfast every day, had his viral load plummeted all the way down to undetectable levels. Instead of dying soon he suddenly regained his life. Incredible!
You might wonder, if coconut oil or coconut-based food is so effective against HIV / AIDS, then why isn't it being widely used as treatment today?
It's the money issue again.
Because of coconut oil's low cost and ready availability worldwide, pharmaceutical companies won't be able to protect their coconut oil based drugs with a patent. Hence they can't charge exorbitantly and reap enormous profits. That's why they don't see the rewards in funding the research for the use of coconut oil in fighting HIV.
Perhaps you're still skeptical about the potential and health benefits of coconut oil until you understand the underlying mechanisms that make coconut oil almost so invincible.

Why Coconut Oil Benefits Your Health — What Makes It So Powerful?

The secret lies in its saturated fat structure and the size of the structure. Let me take you into the fat structure so that I can show you clearly why the unique fat in coconut oil can benefit your health so much. Sorry, it's gonna be somewhat technical, but I promise I'll keep it as simple as possible so that I won't bore you to death.
Are you ready? Here we go.
All oils are essentially made up of 3 types of fatty acids:

• Saturated Fat — consists of a chain of carbon atoms (denoted by 'C') fully attached with hydrogen atoms (denoted by 'H').'O' means oxygen atom.
   
• Monounsaturated Fat — similar to saturated fat structure except for a missing pair of hydrogen atoms. The missing hydrogen pair will cause the 2 neighboring carbon atoms to bond with each other via a double bond. A single bond between carbon atoms is stronger than a double bond. Hence the double bonding between carbon atoms indicates its vulnerability to external attack and will readily react with free radicals (unstable atoms or molecules) that come into contact with it.
   
• Polyunsaturated Fat — similar to monounsaturated fat except that it lacks 2 or more pairs of hydrogen atoms in the chain. 'Poly' means many. Since there could occur 2 or more double bonding, this type of fat is very unstable and thus, highly susceptible to oxidative damage.
   

Note: I'm using the 18-carbon chain for illustration purpose. In actual fact, the chain can appear from as short as 2 carbon atoms to as long as 24 or more. The length of the chain is represented by the number of carbon atoms and determines the different health benefits and properties of the fatty acids.

Fully filled with hydrogen atoms, saturated fat (in coconut oil) remains very stable because it allows no space for other atoms to fit in. Even when you expose the oil to oxygen, heat or light, it doesn't encourage oxidation easily. Hence, formation of free radicals basically won't take place. As a result, it doesn't compromise coconut oil's health benefits.
Whereas the other two types of fat (especially polyunsaturated fat) are very prone to oxidation and free radicals formation at the exposure of heat, light and / or oxygen. Therefore, in terms of structure they are inferior to that of saturated fat.
If the oil (containing predominantly unsaturated fats) gets oxidized, its fundamental health benefits and properties will change totally even though it may still smell and taste seemingly normal. A good example of such oil is olive oil. When you consume oxidized oil, free radicals that finally enter your body will start to attack your healthy cells, leading to a chain reaction that creates more free radicals and cause degenerative damages to your organs and tissues, thus turning your normal body function completely upside down.

Inhaling of smoke particles from burning tobacco incites more free radicals generation. Thus, smokers and second-hand smokers who consume oxidized oil "gain" double risk in health damage.

That's why people who consume oxidized polyunsaturated fat tend to develop cancer and degenerative diseases faster and more easily than those who do not or eat lesser.
But free radicals don't just enter our body through dietary channel. Free radicals appear everywhere in the environment. The more polluted the environment, the more free radicals there are, and the more you will inhale.
In other words, no way you can completely stop the assault by free radicals, but you can strengthen your resistance to their attacks by eating coconut oil which contains abundance of saturated fats (about 92%) acting as antioxidants.
That means your chances of developing cancers and degenerative diseases will become much slimmer with regular consumption of coconut oil.