The Health Benefits of Using Virgin Coconut OilIt is only recently that people have begun to question the quasi-medical notion that eating saturated fats is bad for you. In particular, people have become interested in using virgin coconut oil in their diet because of the several health benefits it confers.
It is now fashionable to eat a table spoon of virgin or organic coconut oil a day; and it is popular to use shampoo with coconut oil and moisturizers containing coconut oil. This is because people are beginning to realize the amazing health benefits of coconut oil.
There are two aspects to the health benefits of coconut oil. The first is that it is a saturated fat that promotes thyroid activity. For years people over-estimated the link between fat and cholesterol. The link exists but what is more important in terms of blood cholesterol is thyroid gland activity. Basically people with high and hyperactive thyroid glands can turn blood cholesterol into anti-aging agents. One of the best promoters of thyroid activity is virgin coconut oil. Studies of Polynesian people who have a high coconut oil diet (sometimes as high as 60%) show that they are a lean, healthy people with a virtual absence of heart disease, cancer and diabetes. These diseases are mostly found in the developed world. Some scientists are beginning to realize that these diseases are very much linked to the thyroid gland, and the suppression of the thyroid gland by polyunsaturated fats such as corn oil, sunflower oil and soybean oil. Polyunsaturated fats were introduced as the ‘safe and healthy’ fat and saturated fats as the ‘evil’ cholesterol-inducing fat; when in fact, it looks like it is polyunsaturated fats that have been causing increases in obesity, cancer and heart disease.
Coconut oil stimulates the thyroid gland and the thyroid gland in turn vitalizes the immunity system in our body. This is why people are now using organic coconut oil as a health food.
There is another amazing benefit of coconut oil. It contains lauric acid. Indeed half the fatty acids in coconut oil are lauric acid. The amazing thing about lauric acid is that it is also found in significant amounts in women’s breast milk. Scientists have now discovered that it is the lauric acid in mother’s milk that protects the new born infant from viral attack, fungi attack and protozoal infection. Lauric acid makes mother’s milk antimicrobial. What luck then that coconut oil also contains high proportions of lauric acid.
Thus, drinking coconut milk or eating coconut oil helps to protect your body from all manner of viral and microbial infection. When you combine the anti-aging properties of coconut oil and the protective properties of coconut oil and milk you begin to realize why some cultures call the coconut palm ‘The Tree of Life’.
Tags: coconut oil, shampoo, tree of life, thyroid gland, anti-aging properties, lauric acid, polyunsaturated fats, saturated fats, virgin coconut oil |
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