“Hey Jane, you ignored the brain,” quips Leslie Norins, MD, PhD, CEO of MCI911.com, the informational website for seniors coping with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), often a harbinger of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). He’s referring to a column by eminent health writer Jane Brody, in Science Times, a weekly section of the New York Times. She lambasts coconut oil for containing fatty acids that some cardiac gurus feel are bad for the heart.
She reported that Dr. Frank Sacks, nutrition and cardiovascular disease specialist at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, told her that for preparing an editorial he “. .could find nothing in the scientific literature to support advertising claims that coconut oil has some beneficial effects.”
“Ms. Brody and these heart experts should come out of their silos,” says Dr. Norins. The heart is not the only important organ in the body; the brain is critical too.” Yet the word “brain” does not appear once in the Brody column or the Sacks editorial.
Why is this omission important? Dr. Norins says there is a growing number of reports in reputable scientific journals that coconut oil, and particularly certain medium-chain triglycerides (MCT) it contains, seems to aid cognition in many patients with MCI or Alzheimer’s disease.
Researchers reported, “that long-term consumption of moderate amounts of saturated fats, in the form of MCT, does not have adverse effects on [cardiovascular disease] risk factors.” In fact, they found it was about the same as olive oil.
Dr. Norins added, “If you are already 70 or 80 years old, and you don’t have heart disease, I doubt you are too worried about developing it from some coconut oil. But almost everyone I’ve met in those age groups is worried about MCI and AD. They are grateful for any tip that might alleviate these disasters.”
Also, he says, “We are making available a helpful sampling of references on the potential of coconut oil, especially its MCT (C-6 and C-8), to aid MCI and AD.
