Coconut Oil activates your metabolism and immune function / Dr. Mercola MD.

[Guest guest]

Coconut Oil 3/24/01- http://www.mercola.com/2001/mar/24/coconut_oil.htm -

 

Coconut Oil

By Ray Peat

 

This is a slightly modified version of Ray Peat's article which can be found

at http://www.efn.org/~raypeat/

I have already discussed the many toxic effects of the unsaturated oils, and

I have frequently mentioned that coconut oil doesn't have those toxic

effects, though it does contain a small amount of the unsaturated oils.

 

Many people have asked me to write something on coconut oil. I thought I

might write a small book on it, but I realize that there are no suitable

channels for distributing such a book--if the seed-oil industry can

eliminate major corporate food products that have used coconut oil for a

hundred years, they certainly have the power to prevent dealers from selling

a book that would affect their market more seriously. For the present, I

will just outline some of the virtues of coconut oil.

 

The unsaturated oils in some cooked foods become rancid in just a few hours,

even at refrigerator temperatures, and are responsible for the stale taste

of leftover foods. (Eating slightly stale food isn't particularly harmful,

since the same oils, even when eaten absolutely fresh, will oxidize at a

much higher rate once they are in the body, where they are heated and

thoroughly mixed with an abundance of oxygen.)

 

Coconut oil that has been kept at room temperature for a year has been

tested for rancidity, and showed no evidence of it.

Since we would expect the small percentage of unsaturated oils naturally

contained in coconut oil to become rancid, it seems that the other

(saturated) oils have an antioxidative effect:

 

I suspect that the dilution keeps the unstable unsaturated fat molecules

spatially separated from each other, so they can't interact in the

destructive chain reactions that occur in other oils.

 

To interrupt chain-reactions of oxidation is one of the functions of

antioxidants, and it is possible that a sufficient quantity of coconut oil

in the body has this function. It is well established that dietary coconut

oil reduces our need for vitamin E, but I think its antioxidant role is more

general than that, and that it has both direct and indirect antioxidant

activities.

 

Coconut oil is unusually rich in short and medium chain fatty acids. Shorter

chain length allows fatty acids to be metabolized without use of the

carnitine transport system. Mildronate protects cells against stress partly

by opposing the action of carnitine, and comparative studies showed that

added carnitine had the opposite effect, promoting the oxidation of

unsaturated fats during stress, and increasing oxidative damage to cells.

 

I suspect that a degree of saturation of the oxidative apparatus by

short-chain fatty acids has a similar effect--that is, that these very

soluble and mobile short-chain saturated fats have priority for oxidation,

because they don't require carnitine transport into the mitochondrion, and

that this will tend to inhibit oxidation of the unstable, peroxidizable

unsaturated fatty acids.

 

When Albert Schweitzer operated his clinic in tropical Africa, he said it

was many years before he saw any cases of cancer, and he believed that the

appearance of cancer was caused by the change to the European type of diet.

In the l920s, German researchers showed that mice on a fat-free diet were

practically free of cancer.

 

Since then, many studies have demonstrated a very close association between

consumption of unsaturated oils and the incidence of cancer.

 

Heart damage is easily produced in animals by feeding them linoleic acid;

this " essential " fatty acid turned out to be the heart toxin in rape-seed

oil.

 

The addition of saturated fat to the experimental heart-toxic oil-rich diet

protects against the damage to heart cells.

Immunosuppression was observed in patients who were being " nourished " by

intravenous emulsions of " essential fatty acids, " and as a result coconut

oil is used as the basis for intravenous fat feeding, except in

organ-transplant patients. For those patients, emulsions of unsaturated oils

are used specifically for their immunosuppressive effects.

 

General aging, and especially aging of the brain, is increasingly seen as

being closely associated with lipid peroxidation.

 

Several years ago I met an old couple, who were only a few years apart in

age, but the wife looked many years younger than her doddering old husband.

She was from the Philippines, and she remarked that she always had to cook

two meals at the same time, because her husband couldn't adapt to her

traditional food. Three times every day, she still prepared her food in

coconut oil. Her apparent youth increased my interest in the effects of

coconut oil.

 

In the l960s, Hartroft and Porta gave an elegant argument for decreasing the

ratio of unsaturated oil to saturated oil in the diet (and thus in the

tissues). They showed that the " age pigment " is produced in proportion to

the ratio of oxidants to antioxidants, multiplied by the ratio of

unsaturated oils to saturated oils.

 

More recently, a variety of studies have demonstrated that ultraviolet light

induces peroxidation in unsaturated fats, but not saturated fats, and that

this occurs in the skin as well as in the lab.

Rabbit experiments, and studies of humans, showed that the amount of

unsaturated oil in the diet strongly affects the rate at which aged,

wrinkled skin develops.

 

The unsaturated fat in the skin is a major target for the aging and

carcinogenic effects of ultraviolet light, though not necessarily the only

one.

 

In the l940s, farmers attempted to use cheap coconut oil for fattening their

animals, but they found that it made them lean, active and hungry. For a few

years, an antithyroid drug was found to make the livestock get fat while

eating less food, but then it was found to be a strong carcinogen, and it

also probably produced hypothyroidism in the people who ate the meat.

 

By the late l940s, it was found that the same antithyroid effect, causing

animals to get fat without eating much food, could be achieved by using soy

beans and corn as feed.

 

Later, an animal experiment fed diets that were low or high in total fat,

and in different groups the fat was provided by pure coconut oil, or a pure

unsaturated oil, or by various mixtures of the two oils. At the end of their

lives, the animals' obesity increased directly in proportion to the ratio of

unsaturated oil to coconut oil in their diet, and was not related to the

total amount of fat they had consumed.

 

That is, animals which ate just a little pure unsaturated oil were fat, and

animals which ate a lot of coconut oil were lean.

G. W. Crile and his wife found that the metabolic rate of people in Yucatan,

where coconut is a staple food, averaged 25% higher than that of people in

the United States.

 

In a hot climate, the adaptive tendency is to have a lower metabolic rate,

so it is clear that some factor is more than offsetting this expected effect

of high environmental temperatures. The people there are lean, and recently

it has been observed that the women there have none of the symptoms we

commonly associate with the menopause.

 

By l950, then, it was established that unsaturated fats suppress the

metabolic rate, apparently creating hypothyroidism.

Over the next few decades, the exact mechanisms of that metabolic damage

were studied. Unsaturated fats damage the mitochondria, partly by

suppressing the reparatory enzyme, and partly by causing generalized

oxidative damage. The more unsaturated the oils are, the more specifically

they suppress tissue response to thyroid hormone, and transport of the

hormone on the thyroid transport protein.

 

Plants evolved a variety of toxins designed to protect themselves from

" predators, " such as grazing animals. Seeds contain a variety of toxins,

that seem to be specific for mammalian enzymes, and the seed oils themselves

function to block protein digestive enzymes in the stomach.

 

The thyroid hormone is formed in the gland by the action of a protein

digestive enzyme, and the unsaturated oils also inhibit that enzyme. Similar

protein digestive enzymes involved in clot removal and immune function

appear to be similarly inhibited by these oils.

 

Just as metabolism is " activated " by consumption of coconut oil, which

prevents the inhibiting effect of unsaturated oils, other inhibited

processes, such as clot removal and immune function, will probably tend to

be restored by continuing use of coconut oil.

 

Brain tissue is very rich in complex forms of fats.

 

The experiment (around 1978) in which pregnant mice were given diets

containing either coconut oil or unsaturated oil showed that brain

development was superior in the young mice whose mothers ate coconut oil.

 

Because coconut oil supports thyroid function, and thyroid governs brain

development, including myelination, the result might simply reflect the

difference between normal and hypothyroid individuals.

 

However, in 1980, experimenters demonstrated that young rats fed milk

containing soy oil incorporated the oil directly into their brain cells, and

had structurally abnormal brain cells as a result.

 

Lipid oxidation occurs during seizures, and antioxidants such as vitamin E

have some anti-seizure activity. Currently, lipid oxidation is being found

to be involved in the nerve cell degeneration of Alzheimer's disease.

 

Various fractions of coconut oil are coming into use as " drugs, " meaning

that they are advertised as treatments for diseases. Butyric acid is used to

treat cancer, lauric and myristic acids to treat virus infections, and

mixtures of medium-chain fats are sold for weight loss.

 

Purification undoubtedly increases certain effects, and results in

profitable products, but in the absence of more precise knowledge, I think

the whole natural product, used as a regular food, is the best way to

protect health.

 

The shorter-chain fatty acids have strong, unpleasant odors; for a couple of

days after I ate a small amount of a medium-chain triglyceride mixture, my

skin oil emitted a rank, goaty smell. Some people don't seem to have that

reaction, and the benefits might outweigh the stink, but these things just

haven't been in use long enough to know whether they are safe.

 

Treating any complex natural product as the drug industry does, as a raw

material to be fractionated in the search for " drug " products, is risky,

because the relevant knowledge isn't sought in the search for an association

between a single chemical and a single disease.

While the toxic unsaturated paint-stock oils, especially safflower, soy,

corn and linseed (flaxseed) oils, have been sold to the public precisely for

their drug effects, all of their claimed benefits were false.

 

When people become interested in coconut oil as a " health food, " the huge

seed-oil industry--operating through their shills--are going to attack it as

an " unproved drug. "

 

While components of coconut oil have been found to have remarkable

physiological effects (as antihistamines, antiinfectives/antiseptics,

promoters of immunity, glucocorticoid antagonist, nontoxic anticancer

agents, for example).

 

The cholesterol-lowering fiasco for a long time centered on the ability of

unsaturated oils to slightly lower serum cholesterol. For years, the

mechanism of that action wasn't known, which should have suggested caution.

Now, it seems that the effect is just one more toxic action, in which the

liver defensively retains its cholesterol, rather than releasing it into the

blood.

 

Large scale human studies have provided overwhelming evidence that whenever

drugs, including the unsaturated oils, were used to lower serum cholesterol,

mortality increased, from a variety of causes including accidents, but

mainly from cancer.

 

Since the l930s, it has been clearly established that suppression of the

thyroid raises serum cholesterol (while increasing mortality from

infections, cancer, and heart disease), while restoring the thyroid hormone

brings cholesterol down to normal.

 

In this situation, however, thyroid isn't suppressing the synthesis of

cholesterol, but rather is promoting its use to form hormones and bile

salts. When the thyroid is functioning properly, the amount of cholesterol

in the blood entering the ovary governs the amount of progesterone being

produced by the ovary, and the same situation exists in all steroid-forming

tissues, such as the adrenal glands and the brain.

 

Progesterone and its precursor, pregnenolone, have a generalized protective

function: antioxidant, anti-seizure, antitoxin, anti-spasm, anti-clot,

anticancer, pro-memory, pro-myelination, pro-attention, etc. Any

interference with the formation of cholesterol will interfere with all of

these exceedingly important protective functions.

As far as the evidence goes, it suggests that coconut oil, added regularly

to a balanced diet, lowers cholesterol to normal by promoting its conversion

into pregnenolone.

 

Coconut-eating cultures in the tropics have consistently lower cholesterol

than people in the U.S. Everyone that I know who uses coconut oil regularly

happens to have cholesterol levels of about 160, while eating mainly

cholesterol rich foods (eggs, milk, cheese, meat, shellfish). I encourage

people to eat sweet fruits, rather than starches, if they want to increase

their production of cholesterol, since fructose has that effect.

 

Many people see coconut oil in its hard, white state, and--as a result of

their training watching television or going to medical school--associate it

with the cholesterol-rich plaques in blood vessels. Those lesions in blood

vessels are caused mostly by lipid oxidation of unsaturated fats, and relate

to stress, because adrenaline liberates fats from storage, and the lining of

blood vessels is exposed to high concentrations of the blood-borne material.

In the body, incidentally, the oil can't exist as a solid, since it

liquefies at 76 degrees. (Incidentally, the viscosity of complex materials

isn't a simple matter of averaging the viscosity of its component materials;

cholesterol and saturated fats sometimes lower the viscosity of cell

components.)

 

Most of the images and metaphors relating to coconut oil and cholesterol

that circulate in our culture are false and misleading. I offer a

counter-image, which is metaphorical, but it is true in that it relates to

lipid oxidation, which is profoundly important in our bodies. After a bottle

of safflower oil has been opened a few times, a few drops that get smeared

onto the outside of the bottle begin to get very sticky, and hard to wash

off.

 

This property is why it is a valued base for paints and varnishes, but this

varnish is chemically closely related to the age pigment that forms " liver

spots " on the skin, and similar lesions in the brain, heart, blood vessels,

lenses of the eyes, etc. The image of " hard, white saturated coconut oil "

isn't relevant to the oil's biological action, but the image of " sticky

varnish-like easily oxidized unsaturated seed oils " is highly relevant to

their toxicity.

 

The ability of some of the medium chain saturated fatty acids in coconut oil

to inhibit the liver's formation of fat very likely synergizes with the

pro-thyroid effect, in allowing energy to be used, rather than stored.

 

When fat isn't formed from carbohydrate, the sugar is available for use, or

for

storage as glycogen. Therefore, shifting from unsaturated fats in foods to

coconut oil involves several anti-stress processes, reducing our need for

the adrenal hormones. Decreased blood sugar is a basic signal for the

release of adrenal hormones.

 

Unsaturated oil tends to lower the blood sugar in at least three basic ways.

It damages mitochondria, causing respiration to be uncoupled from energy

production, meaning that fuel is burned without useful effect. It suppresses

the activity of the respiratory enzyme (directly, and through its

anti-thyroid actions), decreasing the respiratory production of energy.

 

And it tends to direct carbohydrate into fat production, making both stress

and obesity more probable. For those of us who use coconut oil consistently,

one of the most noticeable changes is the ability to go for several hours

without eating, and to feel hungry without having symptoms of hypoglycemia.

 

One of the stylish ways to promote the use of unsaturated oils is to refer

to their presence in " cell membranes, " and to claim that they are essential

for maintaining " membrane fluidity. " As I have mentioned above, it is the

ability of the unsaturated fats, and their breakdown products, to interfere

with enzymes and transport proteins, which accounts for many of their toxic

effects, so they definitely don't just harmlessly form " membranes. "

 

They probably bind to all proteins, and disrupt some of them, but for some

reason their affinity for proteolytic and respiration-related enzymes is

particularly obvious. (I think the chemistry of this association is going to

give us some important insights into the nature of organisms).

 

Unsaturated fats are slightly more water-soluble than fully saturated fats,

and so they do have a greater tendency to concentrate at interfaces between

water and fats or proteins, but there are relatively few places where these

interfaces can be usefully and harmlessly occupied by unsaturated fats, and

at a certain point, an excess becomes harmful.

 

We don't want " membranes " forming where there shouldn't be membranes. The

fluidity or viscosity of cell surfaces is an extremely complex subject, and

the degree of viscosity has to be appropriate for the function of the cell.

Interestingly, in some cells, such as the cells that line the air sacs of

the lungs, cholesterol and one of the saturated fatty acids found in coconut

oil can increase the fluidity of the cell surface.

In red blood cells, which have sometimes been wrongly described as

" hemoglobin enclosed in a cell membrane, " it has been known for a long time

that lipid oxidation of unsaturated fats weakens the cellular structure,

causing the cells to be destroyed prematurely.

 

Lipid oxidation products lower the rigidity of regions of cells considered

to be membranes. But the red blood cell is actually more like a sponge in

structure, consisting of a " skeleton " of proteins, which (if not damaged by

oxidation) can hold its shape, even when the hemoglobin has been removed.

Oxidants damage the protein structure, and it is this structural damage

which in turn increases the " fluidity " of the associated fats.

 

So, it is probably true that in many cases the liquid unsaturated oils do

increase " membrane fluidity, " but it is now clear that in at least some of

those cases the " fluidity " corresponds to the chaos of a damaged cell

protein structure. (N. V. Gorbunov,

 

" Effect of structural modification of membrane proteins on lipid-protein

interactions in the human erythrocyte membrane, " Bull. Exp. Biol. & Med.

116(11), 1364-67. 1993.

 

Although I had stopped using the unsaturated seed oils years ago, and

supposed that I wasn't heavily saturated with toxic unsaturated fat, when I

first used coconut oil I saw an immediate response, that convinced me my

metabolism was chronically inhibited by something that was easily alleviated

by " dilution " or molecular competition.

 

I had put a tablespoonful of coconut oil on some rice I had for supper, and

half an hour later while I was reading, I noticed I was breathing more

deeply than normal. I saw that my skin was pink, and I found that my pulse

was faster than normal--about 98, I think. After an hour or two, my pulse

and breathing returned to normal.

 

Every day for a couple of weeks I noticed the same response while I was

digesting a small amount of coconut oil, but gradually it didn't happen any

more, and I increased my daily consumption of the oil to about an ounce. I

kept eating the same foods as before, except that I added about 200 or 250

calories per day as coconut oil.

 

Apparently the metabolic surges that happened at first were an indication

that my body was compensating for an anti-thyroid substance by producing

more thyroid hormone; when the coconut oil relieved the inhibition, I

experienced a moment of slight hyperthyroidism, but after a time the

inhibitor became less effective, and my body adjusted by producing slightly

less thyroid hormone.

 

But over the next few months, I saw that my weight was slowly and

consistently decreasing. It had been steady at 185 pounds for 25 years, but

over a period of six months it dropped to about 175 pounds. I found that

eating more coconut oil lowered my weight another few pounds, and eating

less caused it to increase.

 

The anti-obesity effect of coconut oil is clear in all of the animal

studies, and in my friends who eat it regularly.

It is now hard to get it in health food stores, since Hain stopped selling

it. The Spectrum product looks and feels a little different to me, and I

suppose the particular type of tree, region, and method of preparation can

account for variations in the consistency and composition of the product.

 

The unmodified natural oil is called " 76 degree melt, " since that is its

natural melting temperature. One bottle from a health food store was labeled

" natural coconut oil, 92% unsaturated oil, " and it had the greasy

consistency of old lard. I suspect that someone had confused palm oil (or

something worse) with coconut oil, because it should be about 96% saturated

fatty acids.

Raymond Peat, Ph.D.

P.O. Box 5764

Eugene, OR 97405

 

DR. MERCOLA'S COMMENT:

I have great respect for Dr. Peat's work. He is the main scientist that

influenced Dr. John Lee with his work on progesterone. Dr. Peat. does a

terrific job of describing some of the reasons why you will want to consider

adding coconut oil regularly to your food. Dr. Peat is a biochemist, so his

writing can be a bit difficult to understand at times though.

I use shredded coconut in my vegetable juice pulp. It is a wonderful way to

benefit from this product.

Raw coconut would clearly be the best, but most of us do not have access to

this. The best source of coconut oil I have found is Omega Nutrition's

Coconut Butter. It is available in many health food stores.

The other way you will want to consider adding coconut oil is to use it

exclusively for all your sautéing and cooking needs. Because coconut oil is

a completely saturated fat it does not form dangerous trans fatty acids.

If you are using canola oil and are not yet aware of the problems with this

oil please s below.

Related Articles:

Canola oil is an Industrial Oil Not Fit For Human Consumption

Canola Oil Update

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