Research
Macro partitioning
Consuming 50g of extra virgin coconut oil daily for 4 weeks significantly increases HDL cholesterol compared to butter and olive oil.
You can expect your HDL (good cholesterol) to rise if you switch to coconut oil, more so than if you eat butter or olive oil. However, because coconut oil does not lower LDL (unlike olive oil) and butter raises it, the overall cardiovascular benefit is not clear-cut.
GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
Coconut oil significantly increased HDL-C compared with butter (+0.18, 95% CI 0.06 to 0.30 mmol/L) or olive oil (+0.16, 95% CI 0.03 to 0.28 mmol/L).
Why this rating
Same RCT design as N1, robust biochemical measurement.
Source
Randomised trial of coconut oil, olive oil or butter on blood lipids and other cardiovascular risk factors in healthy men and women
Kay‐Tee Khaw et al. · BMJ Open · 2018
DOI 10.1136/bmjopen-2017-020167
rct · n=94Cited 194×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
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