Coconut oil has become much popular in recent days because of its health benefits. Since our childhood, we have been using coconut oil to make skin smoother and scalp dandruff free. Coconut oil is considered one of the most beneficial cooking oil. But a few new studies show that coconut oil has some side effects as well.
Must Read: Health Benefits of Coconut Oil
Now, the question arises whether coconut oil is healthy or not? In this article, we have tried to find the answer to this question. We will start it from the health benefits of coconut oil.
Coconut Oil Health Benefits
Coconut oil has various health benefits for heart, skin and weight loss. It does wonders in the condition of yeast infection. It is a natural option to treat many skins and scalp related minor issues. Here are the detailed health benefits of coconut oil.
Coconut Oil for Skin
Coconut oil has been used safely to cure the dryness of the skin for many years. There are many benefits of coconut oil on the skin. For the same reason, coconut oil is the main ingredient of many of the body care products. Regular use of coconut oil delays the wrinkles of the skin. Coconut oil also helps to cure the yeast infection.
Coconut oil is an old treatment to cure few minor issues and it is the best home remedy for minor skin burns. The oil also helps to remove the scar of minor burning on the skin. Coconut oil penetrates the skin deeply and works effectively on the second-degree burns. It moistures many layers of burned skin and prevent it from dryness and pain.
Coconut Oil for Hair
The regular use of coconut oil also makes your hair shinier. Coconut oil also promotes the scalp health and prevents the hair breakage and split ends. Coconut oil moisturizes your scalp and reduces dandruff in your hair.
Your hair is a protein composition. When your hair lacks the protein, it becomes dull and weak. Coconut oil reduces the protein loss from the damaged and unhealthy hair. It increases the length of hair as well.
Coconut Oil for Weight Loss
Coconut oil is considered as the weight loss friendly oil. It boosts the metabolism with its unique combination of fatty acid. Coconut oil has long chain fatty acid that increases the metabolism and burns the fat. In a few recent studies, it has been found that regular use of coconut oil dropped waist size as well.
Coconut Oil for Heart
Coconut oil has 90% saturated fat which is considered unhealthy for the heart but still, it is believed that coconut oil is good for heart health. Despite its fat, the coconut oil has been called the heart-healthy oil because of the type of saturated fat it contains. Coconut oil has the medium chain triglycerides, which improves the health of the heart.
Other Benefits of Coconut Oil
Apart from the above-mentioned benefits, there are many other benefits of coconut oil. It has good anti-stress and anti-oxidant properties. These properties make coconut oil, anti-stress oil. Coconut oil improves our immunity so that we can enjoy a healthy life. Inhaling coconut oil helps in asthma. Coconut oil has reserved hepatosteatosis, a type of fatty acid that has positive effects on our livers.
We have mentioned here the good side of coconut oil. Now, we will discuss the bad side of coconut oil.
Is Coconut Oil Bad for Your Health?
All oil has saturated fat and coconut oil has 90-92% of saturated fat. Saturated fat belongs to any oil, is not good for health. But the saturated fat study is a bit tricky because it involves the long chain triglycerides and medium chain triglycerides. The long chain has 12 or more carbon atoms and the medium chain has 12 or fewer carbon atoms in it. This is the reason that not all saturated fat has the same impact on our body.
If we talk about the coconut oil, its saturated fat is higher and it makes it less healthy in comparison to olive oil. According to few studies on coconut oil, the 10% of saturated fat in coconut oil is made up of less harmful saturated fatty acid but most part of coconut oil has harmful saturated fat. It proves that coconut oil is not as healthy for you as it is advertised.
Few people believe that virgin coconut oil is beneficial for health but the coconut oil industry does not have the standards like olive oil so there is no surety about the health benefits of virgin coconut oil. Moreover, virgin coconut oil is not hydrogenated that means not all unsaturated fat of coconut oil is saturated. This unsaturated oil increases the bad cholesterol (LDL) in the body which is not good for the heart.
Coconut oil is good for skin but there is no proved record that it is good if taken orally. Usually, people take the coconut oil orally to kill the bacteria responsible for internal bacterial infection but it has side effects also. An oral dose of coconut oil can be the reason for diarrhea. Use of coconut oil on the oily skin can make skin more acne prone.
Though the side effects of coconut oil are not much still they cannot be ignored.
Conclusion
The question about the goodness and badness of coconut oil rises after a report published by the American Heart Association (AHA) indicates that coconut oil is harmful to the heart. Many doctors believed in this report and others believe that virgin coconut oil is good for health. Few doctors believe that virgin coconut oil is very expensive and according to the price its benefits are not up to mark.
While discussing the positive and negative effect of coconut oil, we must remember that till now there is no extended study has been done on the uses of coconut oil. It has bad cholesterols (LDL) but good cholesterols (HDL) too, so we can call it a balanced oil.
To conclude the benefits and side effects of coconut oil we need to accept its benefits on skin and hair. It also has good cholesterols to keep your heart healthy. The wise use of coconut oil can boost your health but extensive use of coconut oil can be harmful to your body according to the studies.
Still, there need to be more elaborative studies to be done in this field before declaring the negative effects of coconut oil on our body.