‘Show solid medical evidence of beneficial effects of VCO’
Philippine Coconut Authority Administrator Oscar Garin has said it is high time for the virgin coconut oil (VCO) producers and coconut oil (CNO) manufactures to show solid medical evidence on the touted beneficial effects of VCO or CNO to human health.
“Nine years after the market launch of the VCO, what we have secured so far is a rapidly growing market which gives credence to the health enhancing capabilities of the product as spread by personal testimonies and anecdotal stories of people from around the world,” he said.
Garin, however, said that without a solid clinical and medical study, the industry may not hold a secure and sustainable future for the VCO and other coconut-based food products.
Such success must not afford complacency, he said.
Garin recalled how the coconut industry was once maligned by its adversaries which fraudulently and systematically misinformed the consuming public, particularly in the United States, that coconut oil is bad for the human health.
“We went down, the industry suffered badly such that it was once considered a sunset industry,” he said. “And it is by the researches done by people around the world who kept their faith on coconut that enabled the industry to rise up again.”
The PCA chief said the coconut industry owes a lot to researchers such as Dr. Mary Enig, Dr. Conrado Dayrit, and Dr. Bruce Fife.
“Their researches indicative of the beneficial effects of coconut oil as neutral to heart and vascular diseases, curative of HIV/AIDS, antimicrobial, similar to mother’s milk, and as the healthiest oil on earth help, among others, turn the tide for the coconut industry.”
“However, these findings together with innumerable anecdotal stories still need a definitive clinical study to once and for all establish that indeed VCO and CNO are beneficial to body cholesterol,” Garin added.*
