DOST backs study on VCO health benefits  

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Science and Technology (DOST) is supporting a definitive study aimed at pinning down the specific health benefits derived from virgin coconut oil (VCO).

Through the Philippine Council for Health Research and Development (PCHRD), the DOST has allocated P4.6 million for the VCO research and development (R&D) effort, which will be undertaken with the DOST-Food and Nutrition Research Institute (FNRI) and the De La Salle University Medical Center in Dasmarinas, Cavite.

FNRI director Imelda Angeles-Agdeppa will lead the R&D team for the study, titled “Bioequivalence of Virgin Coconut Oil among Healthy Filipino Male Adults: An Exploratory Pharmacokinetic Study.” Agdeppa also led the clinical studies on VCO as a cure for COVID-19 cases during the pandemic lockdowns in 2020 and 2021, which successfully showed that VCO had hastened the recovery of probable and suspected, and then mild to moderate cases in Santa Rosa, Laguna and Valenzuela City.

The FNRI and DLSU study will seek to determine the rate and extent of absorption of VCO administered to Filipino male adults and monitor the safety and tolerability among takers.

The output of the study is expected to boost the stature of Philippine-made VCO and improve demand for it especially in the export market.

Agdeppa said the output will also provide another scientific basis for the adoption and registration of VCO as a food supplement for COVID-19 patients, even initially at the Food and Drug Administration.

VCO advocate Ed Lalusis, who invented the Growrich VCO capsules food supplement which became popular during the pandemic, hailed the DOST’s continuing support of value-added R&D on VCO, saying the project would be a boon to coconut processors and VCO manufacturers, and more especially the tens of thousands of poor coconut farmers all over the country.

“We commend the DOST for this much-needed support to a vital health R&D activity benefitting one of the country’s primary agri crop, the coconut,”  Lalusis told The STAR.

Lalusis, however, said that other government agencies, particularly the Department of Agriculture and its attached agency the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) which is primarily tasked to oversee coconut farming and the processing industry,  should also step forward and join the DOST in promoting such activities.

“Much more can be done for our coconut farmers and the coconut processing industry. More studies should be conducted to prove that the coconut and VCO has other therapeutic and health benefits not for Filipinos but for everybody and this could greatly uplift the lives of Filipino coconut farmers in the countryside,”  he said.