Weight Loss And Coconut Oil

"I think the real key to coconut oil and weight loss is the fact that it decreases your appetite while you're eating the meal and afterwards," says Fife. "Studies show that when these fats are added, people are satisfied sooner and eat less, and at the next meal they don't make up for it by eating more."

Coconut oil is a medium-chain triglyceride (MCT) while most other fats, such as vegetable oils and animal fat, are long-chain triglycerides (LCTs). "The length of the molecule determines how the fat is metabolized," says Fife. MCTs are rapidly broken down, and the body burns them much like carbohydrates for energy. LCTs, however, are deposited in fat cells. "With MCTs, you're eating fat calories, but you're eating fewer effective calories because metabolism rises, and you end up burning the calories, not storing them as fat. You can eat much more coconut oil than other fats before your body will convert it into fat."

Fife says that the types of oils present in coconut oil stimulate metabolism. "It promotes thermogenesis [burning of calories to produce heat], and some people with low thyroid function tell me they feel warm and their body temperature rises one or two degrees after eating coconut oil." People with low thyroid function have a low metabolism and can have a decreased ability to lose weight.

Can a Saturated Fat Be Good for You?

Coconut oil is highly saturated fat, which puts it in a class with animal fat. It's the oil banned from theater popcorn and denounced by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). Foods found to contain coconut oil and other highly saturated fats end up in the CSPI newsletter's "Food Porn" category.

Six years ago, Fife says he would have agreed that all saturated fats raise serum cholesterol and cause heart disease. He advocated a low-fat diet for his patients trying to lose weight. A colleague piqued his interest in coconut oil, and he began investigating the health benefits. "Coconut oil is used in IV solutions in hospitals and infant formulas," he says. "I thought, 'If it's so bad, why is it given to sick people and babies?

"MCTs are digested much quicker than LCTs, and by the time they reach the intestinal tract they're completely broken down."

Because they're so easily digested, MCTs in coconut oil are used to provide nourishment to people, such as AIDS patients who have trouble digesting fat. There's further interest in their potential to improve athletic endurance and treat type 2 diabetes.

The limited number of studies on oils similar to that found in coconut (in the form of palm kernel oil, coconut oil, linoleate, and other oils) and weight loss show conflicting results. Two researchers at McGill University in Quebec, Marie-Pierre St.-Onge and Peter J. H. Jones, published a review of the literature in the March 2002 issue of the Journal of Nutrition. Animal trials show that substituting MCTs for LCTs over long periods could produce weight loss. From these preliminary studies they concluded that these types of oils produced an increase in energy expenditure and resulted in a decrease in food intake, suggesting the potential for weight control.

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