Trendy oil reduces risk of heart disease, stroke and diabetes

Coconut oil boosts the health of overweight women, according to a recent study, reducing features of metabolic syndrome – a cluster of conditions including heart disease, stroke and type two diabetes. Study's lead investigator, Dr Annie Newell-Fugate, an assistant professor at Texas A&M University in College Station, said: “Substituting one tablespoon of your saturated fat calories per day with coconut oil could result in an improvement in your cardiometabolic health.”

According to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention report, around 40 per cent of Americans are obese, with one in five suffering with metabolic syndrome. She added: "Our controlled experimental study suggests that coconut oil may not be bad for cardiometabolic health, contrary to what previous studies have concluded."

The study used female mini-pigs who were fed a high-fat diet for eight months, consisting of 4,500 calories - to resemble a Western diet that contains 40 per cent or more fat. One group's food included five per cent animal lard. The other high-fat diet group received five per cent non organic coconut oil instead of lard in their food.

A third group of pigs ate a low-calorie, lean diet as a control. The study found that the pigs that received coconut oil had lower cholesterol and blood glucose (sugar) levels compared with the pigs that ate lard-supplemented diet.

The coconut oil group also showed less evidence of fatty liver disease and less deep belly fat than the lard group. Dr Newell-Fugate said: "Our research suggests that coconut oil may be used with lifestyle modifications and anti-diabetic drugs to treat metabolic syndrome, at least in women with obesity."

She added that they do not know if their findings also apply to men. The findings are published in the Journal of the Endocrine Society.