What are the benefits of coconut oil? Ever wondered about the good stuff coconut oil does?
Coconut oil might make you feel less hungry and improve the health of your mouth. It might also help with reducing seizures. But even through coconut oil could be good for some things, it might not be very good for your heart.
A lot of folks are using coconut oil more and more in their cooking. They think it’s really good for you because it can fight off bad germs, has good stuff for your skin and mouth, and might help you lose weight.
Coconut Oil Nutrition:
If you take one spoon of coconut oil, it has these things inside:
- Energy: It gives you 125 units of energy.
- Fats: There are 14 grams of fat.
- Saturated Fats: Out of the 14 grams of fat, 12 grams are the kind called saturated fat.
- Trans Fats: There’s no transferred in it.
- Cholesterol: There is no cholesterol.
- Salt: There is no salt.
- Carbs: There’s no carbs.
- Protein: There’s no protein.
Coconut oil has some special things in it that are good for you, like:
- Lauric acid
- Myristic acid
- Palmitic acid
- Fat that are good for your body, called monounsaturated fats
- Fats that are also good for you, call Polyunsaturated fats
- Plant sterols, which are like healthy plant parts
- Medium-chain triglycerides(MCTS), which are a kind of fat that’s easy for your body to use.
Coconut oil can do nice things for your health.
Lose Weight:
There’s something called “lauric acid” in coconut oil. It’s a kind of fat. Coconut oil has a lot of this lauric acid. Some studies say this lauric acid goes to your liver and becomes energy instead of becoming fat in your body. This might help you lose weight. But we need to know more to be sure if coconut oil really helps with weight loss and making your body work better.
Better Skin and Hair:
A lot of companies and people are putting coconut oil in things like creams and stuff for your hair, skin, and teeth. Coconut oil is good for making your skin less dry and rough. It can also help your hair by stopping it from losing too much protein, which is good.
But, there was one study that said coconut oil could block your pores, which isn’t good. So, if your skin is darker or you have oily skin with acne, coconut oil might not be the best choice for you.
Improved Brain Function:
We need to know more to be sure if eating coconut oil really your brain work better. But the stuff inside coconut oil, like ketones, might help brain cells that are hurt because of Alzheimer’s disease. It gives them a different kind of energy to use.
Heart Problem and Strokes:
Even though some studies say coconut oil can make the good part of your cholesterol go up and the bad part go down, other studies show that compared to oil like olive oil, Coconut oil can make the “bad” cholesterol go higher. This bad cholesterol can make your chances of getting heart problems or having a stroke go up.
A group of doctors called the American Heart Association says that only a small part, like 5- 6% of all the calories you eat in a day should be from fats that are not good for your heart. This is called “saturated fats.” For someone who needs around 2,000 calories each day, this would be like 11 to 13 grams of these fats.
If you take one spoon of coconut oil, it has about 12 grams of these not-good-for-your-heart fats. So, if you take more than one spoon, you could eat too much of these bad fats. This can make your cholesterol go high and increase your chances of having heart problems or a stroke.
Make Bones Strong:
There are two things that can make your bones weak: something called “oxidative stress” and some bad things called “free radicals”. But don’t worry, coconut oil can help with these.
Coconut oil has lots of things called “antioxidants”. They ‘re like superheroes bad fight those bad free radicals. This makes coconut oil are really good way to help with something called “osteoporosis” which makes your bones weak.
Coconut oil also helps your body take in more calcium, which is good for your bones. Studies show that coconut oil not only makes bones bigger and stronger, but it also stops bones from getting weak because of “osteoporosis.”
Benefits of Hair-care:
If you are hair is dry or you have those white flakes called dandruff, coconut oil can help a lot. It has some special things that work great for hair.
You can even make your own shampoo with coconut and lavender. Or just use coconut oil by itself to make your hair feel nice and soft, all without any chemicals.
For dandruff and making your hair thicker put one spoon of coconut oil mix with a few drops of rosemary oil on your scalp. Gently rub it in for three minutes. Then, after about 30 minutes, take a shower.
Coconut Oil for Hormone Balance:
Coconut oil is really good for you in many ways, even for your hormones. It can help balance your hormones because it has a type of fat called “saturated fat,” including something called “lauric acid.” Some studies have found that during menopause, which is when woman’s bodies change, coconut oil can be a healthy fat to eat. It might also do some good things for a hormone called “estrogen.”
To help your hormones naturally, try to eat less sugar and grains. Instead, eat healthy fats from things like coconut, avocado, flaxseeds, and ghee, which is a kind of clarified butter. You can also have other coconut things like coconut butter or coconut water.
Coconut Oil for Anti-Aging:
Some smart people who study medicine wrote in a journal called Food and Function that coconut oil is really good for stopping aging. It helps by making antioxidant better and slowing down how fast we get old. Coconut oil does this by making the liver less stressed and reducing bad things called “oxidative stress”.
Those smart researchers also said that coconut oil might help your body get rid of bad stuff by working with your liver.
To keep yourself from aging too fast, you can have one teaspoon of coconut oil with yummy berries that have lots of antioxidants, you can also put it on your skin for extra health help and to make your skin nice and soft.
Candida and Yeast Infection:
There was a study in a Science Journal that said that special things in coconut oil, like capric acid and lauric acid, can help get rid of a germ called “candida albicans” and infections caused by yeast.
To really beat these germs and infections, don’t eat sugary and super possessed foods, and try to have good fats. You can also take one teaspoon of coconut oil three times a day help you even more.
Coconut Oil and Fighting Cancer:
Coconut oil has stuff that helps fight cancer. One thing is called “ketones,” which this oil makes. These ketones are like special energy that cancer cells can’t use, because they only like sugar.
Some people think that eating foods with these ketones like a special diet called “ketogenic diet,” might help cancer patients get better.
Another thing is coconut oil is called “medium-chained fatty acids” or “MCFAs.” These MC FAS can break down the walls of bad bacteria and also kill a germ that can cause stomach cancer.
And there’s something called “lauric acid” in coconut oil too. It might stop cancer cells from growing and making them die. This is because it does things that stop them from growing more and more and makes themselves-destruct.
