Coconut Oil – A Cure For Alzheimer’s?

Today we’re talking about coconut oil and it’s benefits. How many of you Cook with coconut oil? We knew it was great for hair and skin but who knew it was great nutritionally as well?

The current chat in dementia circles is: can coconut oil prevent or ease Alzheimer’s disease? It is important to mention that no official research has been made and there is no official study that supports or refutes this theory so far. Yet, a lot of people share personal stories about how coconut oil helped them or their loved once living with Dementia. There is also an assumption that coconut oil helps to boost thyroid function, can improve cholesterol by increasing HDL (good cholesterol), Improves the overall health of skin and hair and improves the body’s use of insulin. Wowzers, that’s a lot. Clever little coconuts.

Conventional thought used to consider the coconut oil as unhealthy and a cause for heart disease, in fact Coconut oil is a heart-healthy oil; it is free of cholesterol and trans-fats and provides many benefits in addition to the brain health for people with Alzheimer’s disease.

We often read about the benefits of healthy eating and how certain types of food can improve our memory and help to people with Dementia, as well as exercising, reducing stress and reading a lot. Coconut oil keeps on receiving a great deal of attention recently. In her book “What If There Was a Cure?: The Story of Ketones“ from 2011 Dr Newport claims that by boosting ketones, found in coconut oil, we can improve cognitive function.

According to Kieran Clarke, professor of physiological biochemistry at Oxford University and head of the Cardiac Metabolism Research Group, coconut oil helps by boosting the brains energy supply. “Coconut oil contains a lot of a particular sort of fat that our bodies can use to make more of the ketone “brain food”. Clarke says.

Thyroid Gland disease is an autoimmune condition and a team of scientists from Yale University recently reported that junk food diets and processed foods could be partly to blame for autoimmune diseases.  The coconut oil can regulates the immune system and decreases inflammation.

Coconut oil is also good for our hair, skin and even helps with cold sores. According to Dr. Axe coconut oil is able to penetrate your skin on a deeper level than your average product because of its low molecular weight and the way it bonds with proteins. If you have a very dry skin, you can apply the coconut oil onto your body and it helps to keep your skin moisturized. coconut oil can also be a very effective treatment for cold sores because “Coconut oil contains three fatty acids —capric, caprylic and lauric acid” which help to protect against microbial infections, according to Dr. Axe.

Coconut oil is also known to be a very good natural teeth whitener. You can easily find the coconut oil everywhere, toy can buy it very cheaply from most supermarkets. Asda, Tesco, Waitrose. Coconut water is low in carbohydrates and sodium therefore according to one study “coconut water were found to rehydrate better than plain water”.

If you decide that you want to add coconut oil to your diet here is a great source for coconut oil recipes.

While we wait on scientific research of whether or not coconut oil can slow or prevent dementia, we’ll continue to eat it and lather it on our skin and hair. If it’s healthy, we’re loving it all the same. Doesn’t coconut just taste great too? We’ll take a lovely bunch of those fury little guys please!

A clinical trial is being conducted in the US, which should provide some evidence as to whether coconut oil is safe to use in people with Alzheimer’s disease, The results are now due in mid-2017.