Coconut oil began to gain widespread popularity once people started considering better and healthier alternatives to vegetable oil. Once people realized that coconut oil helped with weight loss and even slow Alzheimer’s, the popularity of this oil shot through the roof!
Although these claims may not be true, coconut oil still ticks all the boxes in terms of benefits from cooking to skincare. And in today’s article, we’ll be talking about all of those benefits.
1. It gives good cholesterol
When people talk about cholesterol, it’s almost always the bad and fatty kind that really should have no business in your diet. However, there’s a good kind that your body needs, and coconut oil offers just that.
The good cholesterol is known as the high density lipoprotein which helps reduce the presence of bad cholesterol also known as LDL, and also helps boost cardiac health.
To test the benefits of coconut oil, participants were asked to take at least a teaspoon of coconut oil twice daily for 8 weeks. At the end of the 8 weeks, all participants recorded reduced levels of low density lipoprotein, or bad cholesterol.
One reason for this is the fact that the saturated fats in coconut oil retain their structure even in high heat cooking, so it doesn’t break down into LDLs like fats found in vegetable oil. So adding coconut oil to your meals may be something to consider to reduce the amount of bad cholesterol in your body.
2. It helps increase metabolism and brain function
Coconut oil can help you increase your metabolism which is how quickly your body can burn and break down calories and compounds. Coconut oil contains a component known as MCTs, or for the geeks, medium-chain triglycerides. These are fatty acids which are quickly absorbed and can increase the number of calories you burn.
Ingesting about 15-30 grams of MCTs can help boost your metabolic rate by an average of 120 over a 24 hour period. The MCTs are also turned into ketones by your liver which can serve as an energy source for your brain and improve your thinking process and creativity.
3. It helps you reduce stress
An oil dedicated to just increasing the quality of life? Sign me up!
Coconut oil helps you combat and reduce stress due to the antioxidant properties that it contains. It can reduce stress that results from exercise and chronic colds. Researchers even believe that coconut oil could be used in treating some kinds of depression.
If you’re feeling stressed from work and your everyday routine, you can add some coconut oil to your meals or your bath to help you reduce stress.
4. It can help fight candida
Candida is a fungus that causes yeast infections which commonly occur in the mouth or genital region, and yeast infections are quite difficult to deal with.
Scientists have found that coconut oil can help fight candida infections. In fact, it was found to be as effective as, if not more than, the medication typically prescribed for candida infections.
So, if you’re dealing with candida and you aren’t ready to swallow a ton of pills, you can substitute it for coconut oil to treat candida. Make sure you ask your physician first before doing this.
5. It will elevate your face care routine and dental health
Although not recommended for people with oily skin, coconut oil can help you elevate your face care routine from a 0 to a hundred. You can incorporate it as a face wash. It acts as an oil cleanser to clean impurities in your pores. It’s also antibacterial and antifungal, so you can keep your face acne free.
It can also be used in face masks, to take off your makeup after a long day, and even as an eye bag cream to get rid of those dark circles.
As dental care, coconut oil can help you freshen your breath and pull disease-causing bacteria out of your mouth, increasing your overall dental health. Swishing coconut oil for 10-20 minutes generates antioxidants which damage and kill microorganisms in the mouth, protect against cavities, reduce gingivitis, promote oral bacterial balance, and reduce inflammation, which are all helpful to your dental health.
Coconut oil should in no way replace any of your teeth care products, but it is worth considering as an addition.
6. Helps with skin irritations and wound healing
Coconut oil helps relieve skin irritation like eczema and helps heal wounds. Research has shown that in children dealing with eczema, 47% of those treated with coconut oil recorded major improvements. So did people with dermatitis and other skin disorders.
Coconut oil also aids wound healing. Wounds treated with coconut oil show a reduction in inflammation and increase in collagen production which helps the wounds heal faster. To speed up healing, you can apply coconut oil directly to the wound and cover it with a bandage.
If you’re dealing with irritations of any kind, coconut oil is also a go to solution.
7. Hydrates and moisturizes
Coconut oil is also very beneficial for hydrating and moisturizing your skin. Dry and ashy skin is one of the most popular skin conditions that people deal with and coconut oil is a perfect affordable solution to this problem. Due to its composition of medium chain fatty acids, it makes a wonderful moisturizer for your knees, elbows, legs and face. It can also be used as a shaving cream for your legs as it provides extra hydration, antimicrobial and skin-soothing properties which off the shelf shaving creams do not. If you have brittle and hang nails or dry cuticles, coconut oil will deal with the cracked skin and hydrate those nails. It can serve as a replacement for lotions as it can heal cracked heels, athlete’s foot and soothe chapped lips by constant application.
8. It protects your hair from damage
Coconut oil is great for the hair. It reduces protein loss in the hair when applied before shampooing. The unique composition of the oil has high penetration rates to help protect the hair from protein loss, and it can also help in minimizing dandruff which is one of the biggest hair conditions people are faced with.
Coconut oil also adds to hair sheen and can be used as a deep conditioner thanks to its ability to penetrate strands. If you’re looking to get rid of frizzy, dry and unpolished hair, coconut oil is your best. It will help to prevent and heal existing hair damage.
9. It helps control blood sugar and prevent liver diseases
Another benefit of incorporating coconut oil into your meals is its ability to help control blood sugar. We consume so much sugar in a day and it’s only right that we find a way to cut off excesses. And using coconut oil is one of the ways we can cut off these excesses.
The MCTs present in coconut oil help preserve insulin sensitivity which reduces rising sugar levels. Thanks to this same MCT element present in coconut oil when tested by researchers, it was discovered that people who consumed coconut oil had better measures of liver health compared to people who didn’t.
Saturated fats and MCTs present in coconut oil help protect the liver from damage caused by toxins and alcohol and increase overall liver health.
10. It protects your skin from UV rays
Our climate and the ozone layer above us is changing and degenerating at rapid rates. Sadly, the quicker the ozone layer is depleted, the more our skins are exposed to the sun’s ultraviolet rays. These rays can cause wrinkling and in more severe cases, skin cancer.
Cancer is deadly and no one wants to be spotting wrinkles when they can actually be prevented. Coconut oil can serve as a shield from the sun’s harsh ultraviolet rays. It is capable of blocking at least up to 20% of the sun’s UV rays.
So, if you’re on vacation and realize you forgot your sunscreen, just get a bottle of coconut oil, rub some on your skin, and you should be good to go.
