Does Mct Oil Make You Lose Weight?

Research indicates that small changes in the quality of the fat you consume can increase weight loss, according to an article by Marie-Pierre St-Onge and Aubrey Bosarge published in the March 2008 issue of the "American Journal of Clinical Nutrition." Medium-chain triglyceride oil, or MCT oil, is useful for this purpose. As a dietary supplement, MCT oil is derived from coconut oil. Consult a qualified health care provider before taking MCT oil for weight loss.

Types

MCT oil is a type of saturated fat. Although saturated fats are generally purported to be detrimental to health compared with unsaturated fats, an article published in the "Journal of the American College of Nutrition" in 2008, with St-Onge and Bosarge as lead authors, explains that different types of these fats are dissimilar and may have different effects on health. Saturated fats can be classified by their structure into short-chain, medium-chain and long-chain fats. Monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, in contrast, are all long-chain fats.

Benefits

Dietary fat is often blamed for heart disease and obesity, but the body processes various fats differently. The way the body processes medium-chain fatty acids seems to inhibit them from being deposited into body fat tissue, explains the 2008 "American Journal of Clinical Nutrition" article. The authors note that during animal studies, rats eating MCT fats develop lower body fat tissue mass than those eating long chain fats. Research with humans also has shown that consuming MCT fats increases fat oxidation and thermogenesis, commonly called fat burning.

Specifics

Thirty-one overweight men and women completed the 2008 "American Journal of Clinical Nutrition" study. They consumed either 18 to 24 g of MCT oil or olive oil per day for 16 weeks as part of a weight-loss program. MCT oil supplementation led to a significantly lower body weight at the end of the study than olive oil did. In addition, the authors noted a trend toward a significantly larger drop in fat mass, trunk fat mass and intra-abdominal body fat tissue with MCT consumption compared with olive oil.

Disease Risk Factors

The 2008 "Journal of the American College of Nutrition" research utilized data from the same study to determine whether MCT oil was associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease. The authors used the parameters of fasting blood sugar, total cholesterol and diastolic blood pressure. MCT oil consumption did not have negative effects on these parameters.

Tips

The St-Onge and Bosarge study provided cranberry or blueberry muffins containing 10 g of MCT oil, along with liquid oil at 8 or 14 g per day. You may use MCT oil as salad dressing or in cooking, according to Kids Health. Taking it with food can prevent digestive side effects. Anyone allergic to coconut or coconut oil should not take MCT oil supplements.