Conscious Choice: Coconut Cures

February 2006 | Choice Eating

Coconut Cures

By Susan DeGrane

Many of us view coconuts as providing little more than an interesting garnish for cookies, pies and confections or the pleasant-smelling ingredient in suntan lotion. But according to Bruce Fife, author of Coconut Cures: Preventing and Treating Common Health Problems with Coconut, coconuts have many healing properties and deserve the moniker of “The Fruit of Life.”

In the Philippines, oil derived from the coconut is commonly referred to as “a drugstore in a bottle,” and in some tropical regions where coconut meat and milk are considered diet staples, Fife tells us heart disease and diabetes, as well as many other common ailments, are rare.

Coconut Cures explores the many medicinal uses of coconut – from treating skin conditions to regulating bodily functions. The book also offers some fairly convincing testimonials from individuals who have tried more conventional medical treatments without success. While not every recollection ends decidedly in a cure, in each case distressing symptoms subside.

The author expounds at length upon the antimicrobial properties of coconut oil’s medium-chain fatty acids, as documented in medical journals. Microorganisms affected include the HIV virus, SARS, measles, herpes, sarcoma, Epstein-Barr, influenza, leukemia and others, Fife insists. He also says that coconut meat, when eaten, can expel tapeworms and other intestinal parasites, as well as improve gastric health.

Other claims he makes for coconut oil include that it can eliminate fungal infections such as athlete’s foot, jock itch, diaper rash and toenail fungus. And he suggests that consumption of coconut meat balances blood sugar, cures colitis, controls diabetes, wards off cancer, and regulates cholesterol and blood pressure.

While this may sound too good to be true, Fife also confronts previous charges that coconut oil raises cholesterol by arguing that in many cases such studies were flawed or involved hydrogenated, not natural, coconut oil.

Fife’s coconut remedies and recipes also add an interesting way to deal with medical problems. For instance, eating three dozen coconut macaroons (recipe included) with the goal of consuming two and a half cups of coconut seems like a delightful way to purge intestinal parasites. Fife provides plenty of other coconut concoctions, such as coconut porridge and a “bowel cleanser” made from coconut meat, prunes and dried apricots.

However, the anti-candida tonic made from shredded coconut, coconut oil, yogurt and a raw egg may bother some not willing to risk trading a candida infection for possible salmonella. And Fife’s insistence that the only harm coconuts can inflict is neurological damage — caused when a coconut falls from a tree and conks you on the head — is a bit overwrought.

Fife is a naturopathic doctor, not a medical doctor, but the book’s foreword is written by Conrado S. Dayrit, M.D., emeritus professor of pharmacology at the University of the Philippines. Dayrit was the first to publish studies revealing that coconut oil reduced viral counts in HIV patients.

Coconut Cures: Preventing and Treating Common Health Problems with Coconut by Bruce Fife, N.D., with foreword by Conrado S. Dayrit, M.D. (Piccadilly Books, Ltd, $15.95.)

Susan DeGrane is the assistant editor of Conscious Choice magazine

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