Coconut oil and bad gut bacteria

(M) #1

I am not good at discerning good studies from the bad. Can anybody help me figure out if it’s really true that coconut oil is one of the best remedies for treating bad gut bacteria?

(Joey) #2

I’ve never heard this before … can you point out where you got this impression so one might discern if there is indeed any reliable study on this question?

(M) #3

https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=coconut+oil+gut+bacteria+candida+sibo&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

this will turn up a long list of results saying it is helpful.

(I tested negative for sibo, but they did say there was some error with one of the tubes. I get sibo like symptoms and since my transit is slow it makes sense bad bacteria would build up. I noticed even when coconut makes me nauseous it does seem to keep the bloating down a bit so I was wondering if it was true. That is why I’m asking about it)

#4

You can find things saying that literally everything helps and destroys gut bacteria, unless you’ve sent your crap to a lab and they said your bacteria is out of whack, assume it’s fine. Be way better off doing things you know can help, like digestive aids, and pre/probiotics.

Remember that even doctors that study gut biomes can’t even tell us what a good one vs a bad one looks like! They literally have no idea. I have slow transit time, which I make worse with Semaglutide, use a TON of Splenda and have for years, have had bloating issues for a long time, and my microbiome test as far as bacteria came back great. Only thing I learned was I make a lot of methane and had two food virus’

(Mike W.) #5

Follow the money for all studies.

(Joey) #6

I briefly scanned some of the top search hits - not an exhaustive effort - but tried to pursue links that were cited to actual research papers. Frankly, the scant evidence wasn’t particular compelling (at least that I came across in my quick tour).

@lfod14’s comment above is spot on. The whole field of gut biome research is in its infancy so I’d be skeptical of any significant findings yet.

Nonetheless, here’s my quick takeaway …

  • Whether coconut oil helps address SIBO seems to be unclear. The strongest evidence cited seemed to indicate that it doesn’t aggravate SIBO. So I guess that’s a good thing?

If you want to do what some believe helps reduce SIBO-like symptoms that would be to use “probiotics.” To me, that means coconut oil, to be helpful would need to be naturally fermented.

The bacteria typically found in naturally-fermented foods (slowly in salted brine submerged without oxygen) are the lactobacillus strains of bacteria. These are anaerobic bacteria that are thought to help reduce gas (CO2) and provide other digestive benefits by keeping aerobic bacteria (the unhealthy ones associated with damage) at bay.

Some ideal sources of lactobacillus are found in home-fermented pickles, sauerkraut, kimchi. I’m biased: we always have plenty of such home-fermented items in our fridge and eat them regularly.

Store bought kinds that have vinegar as an ingredient don’t contain live lactobacillus since vinegar is used as a short-cut by food manufacturers to avoid any meaningful time “wasted” through genuine fermentation. So they contain minimal lactobacillus and often they are no longer active. It’s the live bacteria are what you want to ingest as a probiotic.

Hope some of this is helpful.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #7

Professor Bikman in one of his lectures, suggested fasting for a few days to deprive the gut bacteria of food. Then, when you start to eat again, the bacteria that grow in the intestine will match the foods you are eating.

(Rossi Luo) #8

This is quite interesting and makes sense!
I was thinking if eating some good bacteria can help? Here, it’s quite popular to buy some good bacteria to eat, can the good ones kill the bad ones?

(M) #9

Yet many same articles that come up in the google search say avoid fermented foods because candida can feed on them.

(Bob M) #10

The biome may be the most confusing area to research. Here’s a recent study where they examined the biome of people put on a keto diet and thought there were benefits to the biome:

In their section 6, they state the following:

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And if you read other sections, they go through studies where the bacteria are correlated (or not) with obesity, but often different studies find different correlations.

I do think the biome is meaningful, I just am unsure how to gauge its usefulness, particularly because testing is also all over the map. It’s like oxalates: people are convinced they are bad, but there is no way to test this theory.

(Robin) #11

This latest interest in our gut biome feels like pickle ball. Let’s all jump on board.

Sorry for the sarcasm… I suppose I’m always leery when a health fad suddenly pops up and a new profession is born. Paying to have my gut biome checked and buying new supplements.

Or having my feces examined.
Zoiks!
I’m not ready for all this.

(Bob M) #12

Well, way back in the “old days”, people were all over trying to adjust the biome by eating prebiotics (generally potato starch) and a variety of probiotics. Some probiotics, like soil-based probiotics, supposedly killed “bad” bacteria. Some supposedly adjusted the good bacteria or good/bad ratio.

Back then, I was eating spoonfuls of potato starch and trying to adjust my biome.

The problems come with testing. If you send the same poop to two different labs, you get two different results. If you sample two different locations of poop and send these to the same lab, you can get two different results. Saw a test where people took a pill and they compared the actual measurements of what biome was in the body with results where the poop was sampled and sent to a lab. Again, different results.

So, even if we knew what bacteria were “good” and what were “bad”, the testing is suspect.

That study shows that the biome changes with keto (and I’m thinking probably changes even more for fasting > 24 hours), but it’s hard to gauge whether it’s an overall benefit or not.

On the other hand, I’ve listened to quite a few podcasts where people have really been benefited by drinking things like bone broth/stock. Sometimes even curing very challenging diseases. (One woman had no food other than bone broth, for a long time – a year?) This has to affect the biome, but it also affects the permeability of the digestive system. Not sure which predominates.

(Mark) #13

My N=1 is extended fasting is the greatest way to kill off everything in the gut and completely reset the entire digestive system. My long fast was 26 days of only water and now my digestive system is so much healthier. It wasn’t the reason I did the fast but it was one of the nice take aways I received from allowing myself to get that good deep healing from not putting any calories into the body for that long.

(Peter - Don't Fear the Fat ) #14

I can’t find that online. I did however find many references to Candida being caused by sugar and carbs.
And that suggests a low carb diet is the solution. Another Keto success story :grinning:

(Joey) #15

Perhaps best to never eat anything. :man_shrugging:
Or switch from google to duckduckgo?

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #16

When I joined the forums in 2017, a lot of people posting had systemic yeast infections and were experiencing massive Candida die-offs from going keto. It is apparently unpleasant to go through, but well worth the trouble. If I thought I had a yeast problem, I’d go strict carnivore, at least until the problem was resolved, possibly permanently. Candida albicans causes a lot of problems in the body, and it’s well worth it to get shut of it.

(Peter - Don't Fear the Fat ) #17

Paul, 5 months ago (pre keto diet) I had a very white furry tongue … infection? I wouldn’t say it was, I’d had it for years, along with whatever other mess it caused.
Anyway, I don’t have that now.
My doctor once called it ‘Mouth to Anus’ infection !

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #18

A white, furry tongue is often a symptom of thrush, which is otherwise known as candidaisis, or infection with Candida albicans. Glad to know that, whatever it might have been, you don’t have it anymore.

You can get various infections from various types of oral sex, but I didn’t think candidiasis was one of them!

(M) #19

Here is a link to a study one website sourced their information from. This is for oral bacteria though.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #20

Now that is interesting! As you say, I’m not sure we could generalise from this to intestinal bacteria, but who knows?

It looks from the abstract as though the reason this works is that the bacteria they studied use fatty acids to fight off other species, so they are likely to the unaffected by the fats they produce, while being vulnerable to those produced by another species.

I have to admit that your original post sounded a bit off the wall, but after looking at this link, it appears to make a lot more sense. Again, though, I would advise applying this very cautiously to the intestinal bacteria.

Principally, the reasons for caution all boil down to how different the mouth and the stomach are as environments. The oral bacteria live in our saliva, which has certain digestive properties, and the gastrointestinal tract has very different properties.

One consideration is that the fatty acids have to travel through the stomach and the small intestine, in order to reach the large intestine where the bacteria are. I’m not sure they even make it that far, under ordinary circumstances. Surely the fats get absorbed into the blood stream, either in the stomach or as they travel through the small intestine. Would there usually be any left, by the time the residue of the meal reaches the colon? On the other hand, things do make it all the way through the digestive tract, so I suppose some of the fats we eat could do so.

My guess, however, in the absence of actual data, is that, in light of the study you cite, coconut oil could possibly, under the right circumstances, affect bacteria in the large intestine, but it’s probably not advisable to rely on it. (I wonder what would happen if it were administered as an enema, instead of eaten?) We need more data! Any further studies you can come up with will be much appreciated.