The Coconut Diet: The Secret Ingredient for Effortless Weight Loss. Cherie Calbom

on some, but not all, nights and maybe in a few other experimental recipes.

       Malikah

       More Scientific Evidence on the Weight-Loss Effects of MCTs

      Scientific studies have reported that the fatty acids from MCTs are not easily converted into stored triglycerides, and that MCTs cannot be readily used by the body to make larger fat molecules.¹⁸ One animal feeding study evaluated body weight and fat storage for three different diets—a low-fat diet, a high-fat diet containing long-chain triglycerides (LCTs), and a high-fat diet containing MCTs. All animals were fed the selected diets for a period of 44 days. At the end of that time, the low-fat diet group had stored an average of 0.47 grams of fat per day; the LCT group stored 0.48 grams/day, while the MCT group deposited only 0.19 grams of fat per day, a 60 percent reduction in the amount of fat stored. The authors conclude: “the change from a low-fat diet to an MCT-diet is attended by a decrease in the body weight gain.”¹⁹

      This study points out two important facts: First, when MCTs are substituted for LCTs in the diet, the body is much less inclined to store fat. Second, when we eat sensibly, a diet containing MCTs is more effective than a low-fat diet at decreasing stored fat.

      In a human study, researchers compared the metabolic effects of 400-calorie meals of MCTs and LCTs by measuring metabolic rates prior to and six hours following the test meals. The results showed that the MCT-containing meals caused an average 12 percent increase in basal metabolic rate as compared with a 4 percent increase with the LCT-containing meal. The authors concluded that replacing dietary fats with MCTs could “over long periods of time produce weight loss even in the absence of reduced [caloric] intake.”²⁰