Is Coconut Good for Diabetes

Sometimes ago before the discovery of insulin, a Diabetes diagnosis was most certainly a death sentence, and you surely want to know how to reverse diabetes. Even though things have changed now and chances of survival is a lot higher, diabetes still cannot be taken lightly. This is why it is crucial for people living with diabetes to maintain a healthy lifestyle. A huge part of this is keeping a healthy diet. By learning the effects of food like carbohydrates on your blood glucose level, you will be able to tell how other foods like fresh coconut can be of benefits to you and when and how to eat them.

Benefits of coconut oil

For anyone suffering from diabetes, you must know that an important component of staying healthy is staying in shape. This is why having a diabetes diet plan is important. Patients suffering from type-2 diabetes are the most affected by this since it is associated with a general insulin resistance by the body which is generally believed to be linked to an excessive weight.

A research study conducted in 2008 found that those who include food rich in medium fat like coconut oil in their weight loss regimen were able to lose more fat than those who took olive oil. This is because solid fat which is contained in coconut oil is not converted to stored fat easily and thus can be burned off by the body quite easily.

This is supported by another study carried out in 2009 on lipids although there is a dearth of scientific research to further corroborate these claims. It has also been discovered from research that this “virgin” coconut oil has anti-stress and antioxidant properties. However, unlike olive oil, coconut oil has no existing industrial standards. As s a result of this there is a variation in quality of the virgin coconut oil that is made available by different manufacturers. In fact, there mere fact that it is Virgin oil means it is unprocessed, unrefined and still retains much of its natural color and smell.

Risk factors

Despite all of coconut oil’s potential benefits, it contains unsaturated fat which is generally considered as unhealthy fat. Consuming saturated fats might potentially increase cholesterol levels. This causes heart diseases in the long run. Diabetes patients are prone to heart disease. However, studies continue to reveal that despite the general perception about it, coconut oil still remains a better alternative to most accepted oil.

A comparison with sunflower oil revealed that there was no change in the cardiovascular risk factors believed to be caused by lipids in patients that consumed coconut oil. Another study which compared soybean oil with coconut oil also discovered that the former can potentially cause obesity and trigger diabetes symptoms than the former.

However, the American Diabetes Association advise that people suffering from diabetes should limit how much saturated fat contained in their diet in order to reduce their chances of coming down with heart attack. Instead, the association suggests that healthy fats like safflower oil and olive oil are healthier alternatives.

No longer Black and White

During its early days, diabetes management centered around simply avoiding food that has high sugar content. Advances have, however, revealed a better understanding of the way foods affect the level of sugar in the blood. This has brought helped to eliminate the “eat” and “eat not” list and brought up an emphasis on the management of an individual’s total consumption of carbohydrate.

This has led to practices such as favoring carbohydrate foods that are slow to digest over those the slow digesting ones since this helps to avoid drastic changes in the blood sugar level. There is also an increased attention on dietary fibers because they help slow down the rate at which sugars and carbs are absorbed from food.

Carbs from Coconuts

Fresh coconuts are known to contribute quite modestly to the recommended daily intake of carbohydrate. This is partly because taking just a little has a lot of impacts. Those who consume coconut usually take it in shredded portions to garnish their dishes. This is because a while solid piece can be quite jaw-tiring to consume at one.

The United States Department of Agriculture estimates that the total amount of carbohydrate in a coconut weighing 45 grams will be about 6.9 gram. This accounts for about two percent of the total recommended daily allowance. also, only about 2.8 grams of this total amount is in sugar.

Getting Fiber

Coconut is also a very rich source of fiber. In fact, coconut fiber can be packaged in capsule form and is sold as health supplements recommended for those who are unable to get enough fiber from their food.

A snack sized fresh coconut like the one described above will contain about 4 grams of nutritional fiber. This accounts for a whopping 16% of the recommended daily intake. Thus eating a food like this which delivers such an amount of fiber for just 2% of your carbohydrate allowance for the day is a very smart decision by all standards.

How do you include coconut oil in your diet?

However, if you are making a decision to add virgin coconut oil to your meals, this should be done in absolute moderation. You can substitute your regular oil for coconut oil once in a while when you are mixing dough or while sautéing vegetables.

If you are adding coconut oil to your baking recipe, you should ensure that it is melted to a liquid state while you keep the other ingredient at room temperature. Doing this will help to keep the coconut oil from forming clumps. Because coconut oil is quite flavorful, you should be careful to ensure that you are not using more than a serving which is just a tablespoon.

Conclusion

While coconut oil is beneficial on so many levels, it is still saturated fat which means it can increase the risks of heart diseases. There are enough pieces of evidence to demonstrate the effect of coconut in rodent tests but little human clinical trials in that regard leaving a lot of unanswered questions. It may therefore be a lot safer to continue using the established healthy fats like olive oil while limiting the use of coconut oil to small amounts on occasional cases.