Health food tends to run in trends. At the moment coconut is king. But just as we live in a material world with two sides to everything, it appears there may be a “shadow side” to coconut oil – for some patients.

You will learn Dr. Berkson’s conclusions from first hearing this at an A4M Anti-aging Gastroenterology module, where she was both a professor and student, along with “sleuthing’ the science.

In this show you will learn:

  • What is intestinal permeability and why is “Goldilocks” just right permeability critical.
  • What is coconut fat and how is this saturated fat very different from animal saturated fat.
  • What is LPS and endotoxins.
  • How to test for LPS and which labs do it.
  • How different oils effect this.
  • How different oils effect how we absorb sugar from food.
  • Who should be very moderate if not avoid coconut oil and who doesn’t need to.
  • What might coconut oil do to the gut wall and what are the studies suggesting this.
  • What might coconut oil to the colonic microbiome and what are the studies suggesting this.
  • Where is the Department of Nutrition that 1st published a pig and now a human study looking at every hour, up to five hour, blood levels of endotoxins, after consuming coconut oil.
  • This does not reflect food.
  • This probably does not reflect MTC oils.
  • The gut and gut wall benefit of spore probiotics.
  • The role of dietary fats and fatty liver.

A Few Interesting Citations

Lipids Health Dis. 2016 Nov 5;15(1):186. Postprandial serum endotoxin in healthy humans is modulated by dietary fat in a randomized, controlled, cross-over study. 

BMC genomics 19 (1), 808  2018 Nov 7 Differential Effects of Coconut Versus Soy Oil on Gut Microbiota Composition and Predicted Metabolic Function in Adult Mice

J Med Food 2019 Dec 3 Virgin Coconut Oil Associated With High-Fat Diet Induces Metabolic Dysfunctions, Adipose Inflammation, and Hepatic Lipid Accumulation

Influencia de la ingesta de aceites vegetales en la absorción intestinal de glucosa in vitro en hamster dorado [Influence of intake of vegetable oils on the in vitro intestinal absorption of glucose in golden hamsters]. Arch Latinoam Nutr. 1995;45(4):290–294.

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