Garin: Claims on health benefits of VCO need proof

MANILA, Philippines - Philippine Coconut Authority Administrator Oscar G. Garin declared that it is now high time for the virgin coconut oil (VCO) producers and coconut oil (CNO) manufactures to back up with solid medical evidence the touted beneficial effects of CNO and VCO to the human health and cholesterol level. 

“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” Garin said, adding that such success must not afford complacency.

“Without a solid clinical and medical study on our hand, we may not hold a secure and sustainable future for the VCO and other coconut-based food products” Garin said as he recalled how the coconut industry was once maligned by its adversaries who claimed 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,” the administrator continued. “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” he stressed declaring that the coconut industry owed a lot from the researches of Dr. Mary Enig, Dr. Conrado Dayrit, Dr. Bruce Fife and many others.

“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 a need a definitive clinical study to once and for all establish that indeed VCO and CNO are beneficial to body cholesterol.”