Coconut Oil and Your Health: The Good and the Bad

There’s an understood dichotomy in the world of cooking and nutrition: there are good fats and bad fats.

The good fats are low in, well, fat. They’re derived from plants and can convey benefits like anti-inflammatory compounds and antioxidants. Examples include olive oil and vegetable oils. Bad fats are fattier and are often derived from animals. Examples include butter, lard and ghee.

There’s a little more nuance to this divide than good/bad when one reads the scientific literature, but it’s a helpful classification system to start with.

So, which side does coconut oil fall? Good or bad? It’s derived from a plant, like most fats considered good. It’s extolled by wellness gurus like Gwyneth Paltrow, who reportedly swills a spoonful of the oil in her mouth for 10 minutes every day. So there’s that, too.

These factors may partly explain why 72% of Americans believe coconut oil is a “healthy food”. In other words, a good fat.

The thing is, according to many cardiovascular researchers, it isn’t.

Let’s take a look at the studies.

The good

A key component of coconut oil is a saturated fatty acid called lauric acid – a compound that, according to some studies, may have some health benefits.

One study published in 2017 found that, while other saturated fats derived from animals appeared to weaken cartilage, making it prone to damage and arthritis, lauric acid didn’t.

“Interestingly, when we replaced the meat fat in the diet with lauric acid we found decreased signs of cartilage deterioration and metabolic syndrome, so it seems to have a protective effect,” PhD student Sunder Sekar from the Queensland University said in a statement at the time.

The acid has also been shown to act as a broad-spectrum antibiotic, leading some researchers to suggest that it may help balance the bacterial communities in the human gut microbiota.

Confusingly, though, while coconut oil as a whole increases plasma levels of high-density lipoproteins/HDLs (the “good” cholesterol), on its own, lauric acid increases low-density lipoproteins/LDLs (the “bad” cholesterol).

This aspect of the food is one of several that give cardiologists cause for concern…

The bad

Compared to most other plant-derived oils, coconut oil is one of the fattiest. Indeed, gram for gram, it has higher levels of saturated fats than many animal-derived fats, including butter and lard.

According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), around 83% of coconut oil consists of saturated fats. For comparison, lard contains around 32% saturated fats and olive oil contains between 13-14%.

These differences are so stark that some alternative meat producers are now switching their fat of choice from coconut oil to animal fat grown in a cell reactor.

“The fat we’re replacing in most applications is coconut oil, which is higher in saturated fat content than pork fat,” Max Jamilly, co-founder of cultured fat manufacturer Hoxton Farms, recently told Technology Networks.

“Therefore, our cultivated pork fat is likely to result in products that are better for cardiovascular health than their current plant-based alternatives.”

Indeed, many leading cardiologists concur with Jamilly.

Published in Circulation in 2020, one editorial penned by several cardiologists on behalf of the American Heart Association concluded that “coconut oil may be viewed as one of the most deleterious cooking oils that increases risk for cardiovascular disease.”

While the editorial acknowledged that no randomized clinical trials had been conducted on the oil’s cardiovascular effects, its known LDL-boosting effects – which appear to outweigh its HDL-boosting effects – were enough reason to cause concern.

“In culinary practice, coconut oil should not be used as a regular cooking oil, although it can be used sparingly for flavor or texture,” the editorial stated.

Beyond its cardio detriments, the oil’s production is also an area of controversy. Like the more notorious palm oil, coconut oil is often grown from crops planted on recently felled land.

According to one study published in 2020, the production of coconut oil affects 20 threatened species (including plants and animals) per million tons of oil produced – a much higher figure than the 3.8 species per million tons associated with palm oil or the 1.3 species per million tons associated with soybeans.

Final thoughts

Despite the wellness hype, coconut oil is one of the most saturated fats you can buy. Given the serious cardiovascular risk saturated fats pose, most dieticians would advise consuming the oil in moderate, infrequent amounts.