It’s
no secret that the rate of virtually every disease continues to rise year after
year. Often at times if you want to achieve the opposite results with your
health, you must take opposite action.
A
perfect example of this can be seen by looking at the fats in your diet.
Coconut oil is by far one of the best fats, or cooking oils, for thyroid health
because of the fact that it’s highly saturated.
Not
only is coconut oil a very
saturated fat containing 96% or more saturated fat, but it contains next to no
polyunsaturated fats (PUFAs), which we know are quite thyroid suppressive on
multiple levels.
Before
you start cringing and squirming in your seat at the idea of using a saturated
fat in your diet, let’s think about it for just a second and use a little
common sense for once.
We
know that unsaturated fats oxidize easily and promote cell damage. The reason
they oxidize so easily is because of their weak and unstable chemical
structure.
Saturated
fats on the other hand are extremely stable and do not oxidize. So, by simply
eating coconut oil instead of PUFAs, you’re protecting yourself from accelerated
aging and a number of other health problems associated with the oxidative
damage caused by PUFAs in your diet.
But
won’t coconut oil, being a saturated fat, clog your arteries and cause heart
disease?
Unfortunately,
that’s what more than a half of a century of brain washing will do to you. But
it’s a good thing that you’re too smart to let that continue to happen, right?
Medium chain triglycerides
(MCT) in aging and arteriosclerosis.
The Demographic
Yearbook of the United Nations (1978) reported that Sri Lanka has the lowest
death rate from ischemic heart disease. Sri Lanka is the only of the countries
giving reliable data where coconut oil (containing over 50% medium chain fatty
acids) is the main dietary fat.
What
baffles me even more is that regardless of the research, the benefits of
coconut oil are still being greatly down-played by the medical community.
In
fact, here’s a quote directly from a Mayo Clinic endocrinologist regarding the
potential benefits of coconut oil for thyroid health:
The misconception
that coconut oil can cure underactive thyroid (hypothyroidism) arose after
publication of a book several years ago touting the beneficial effects of
coconut oil. However, there is no evidence that coconut oil stimulates thyroid
function.
–
Mayo Clinic Endocrinologist
Even
the FDA has stated that coconut oil, being a saturated fat, should be avoided.
How Coconut Oil
Helps Thyroid Health
Unfortunately,
our lack of understanding of physiology and common sense are really what are
holding us back from seeing and understanding the benefits that coconut oil
provides for hypothyroidism.
Sometimes
you have to look beyond the direct effect on the thyroid gland itself and look
at the bigger picture.
Most
of the benefits that coconut oil provides for thyroid health, have more to do
with its ability to help regulate and correct your physiology to prevent other
external influences from suppressing your thyroid.
Here
are a few examples of how coconut oil directly or indirectly improves thyroid health
and function.
1. Coconut oil
displaces PUFAs and their direct harmful thyroid suppressive effects. As I
mentioned above, these so called “heart healthy” polyunsaturated fats that are
being promoted are well known to suppress your thyroid on multiple levels: at
your gland, in your bloodstream, and at your cells.
By
simply eating more coconut oil, you are effectively increasing the ratio of
saturated fatty acids to unsaturated fatty acids and therefore displacing the
PUFAs in your body which directly improves your thyroid health function on all
levels.
2. Coconut oil
helps regulate blood sugar and stress hormones which suppress thyroid function.
PUFAs are also very effective at lowering blood sugar, and by replacing
PUFAs in your body with the saturated fat from coconut oil, it helps to
regulate blood sugar and therefore suppress stress hormones.
Stress
hormones can directly inhibit the thyroid gland by suppressing TSH. They
suppress thyroid hormone conversion in the liver. They also increase Reverse T3
production. In general, hypothyroidism sufferers overproduce stress hormones.
Many
people experience a greater sense of satiety and improved blood sugar control
after replacing PUFAs with coconut oil in their diet.
3. Coconut oil
protects cell mitochondria against stress and injury, both of which suppress thyroid
function. I talk a lot about the health of your thyroid being largely
dictated by your cells ability to utilize thyroid hormone.
PUFAs
cause cell damage and alter metabolism on many levels. For starters, I’ve
already mentioned that they cause oxidative cell damage which directly damages
the cell mitochondria and inhibits your cells ability to utilize thyroid
hormone properly.
This
is why everyone is so gung-ho on antioxidants today. Everyone is unknowingly
pumping their bodies full of bad oils that are causing the very oxidative
damage that these antioxidants are trying to protect against.
Coconut
oil acts as a potent antioxidant by helping to offset the pro-oxidative effects
of the PUFAs, which in turn improves mitochondria and cell health, and promotes
the healthy use of thyroid hormone by your cells.
Fractions
of coconut oil are now even being used by medicine in the treatment of many
kinds of cancers, which in itself goes to show you that coconut oil does play a
direct role in improving cellular energy production and therefore improving
thyroid function.
What Kind of
Coconut Oil Is Best for Thyroid Health?
As
with most health foods, as they become increasing popular, more and more low
quality products begin to hit the market. Coconut oil is no different.
This
is why it’s important to get coconut oil from a reputable source, since the
chemical processing often negates the benefits of the oil itself and introduces
other potential harmful components.
This
is what has driven most people to rely on unrefined virgin coconut oil, but
even this isn’t ideal for most people since unrefined coconut oil still
contains coconut particulate which can irritate the digestive tract and
increase estrogen and stress hormone production.
This
is why often times a properly refined (expeller pressed) coconut oil can be a
much better option for thyroid health.
Watch
this Video HERE
- The
Coconut & Thyroid Connection - Coconut Oil Benefits for Thyroid Health
Read
these related articles:
Author Bio:
Tom Brimeyer – The
author of Hypothyroidism Revolution – is a practitioner of functional medicine,
health researcher and author on nutrition, hormones and hypothyroidism.
His personal
mission is to inspire and educate people to take control and achieve true
health by correcting their hypothyroidism and underlying causes of their health
problems instead of being stuck relying on doctors and drugs that merely cover
up their symptoms while their health continues to suffer.
