Kate Pereyra Garcia documents her three weeks eating coconut oil in part one of Healthy or Hoax, a new podcast series looking at the facts behind current health trends. Does it live up to the hype?

By Kate Pereyra Garcia

The proponents of coconut oil make a lot of promises.

So when someone was needed as a human guinea pig for RNZ's Healthy or Hoax podcast, I volunteered.

Lose weight, lower cholesterol and prevent wrinkles? Simply by eating oil?

If it works: amazing.

The claims around the medical properties of coconut oil have burgeoned in recent times, with bold claims online that it's "one of the healthiest foods on the planet" with "life-saving" properties. Beyond the more superficial claims about weight loss, building muscles and stopping wrinkles, its supporters suggest it may prevent Alzheimer's, heart disease and some cancers.

If even half of the claims were true, it would be a miracle cure. So, although some scientists are pretty sceptical, it's not hard to see why more people are buying it.

New Zealand supermarkets had a 15 percent year-on-year increase in sales.

Countdown spokesperson James Walker said it was part of a trend across the entire supermarket for specialty health foods. For its part, Foodstuffs confirmed New Zealand supermarkets sold more than $7 million worth of coconut oil in the year to March.

So I was in good company when I popped into my local New World to purchase a tub for the experiment.

It was completely non-scientific, of course, but the idea was to consume at least a tablespoon a day for three weeks. I did a blood test to check cholesterol levels before and after.

Consultant Laurence Eyres conducted a major review of studies of coconut oil for the Heart Foundation, which was published last year in the Nutrition Reviews journal. He didn't find one peer-reviewed study showing any benefit of using coconut oil.

"The claims for curing Alzheimer's or cancer or what have you were based on marketing hype and had no foundation."

So on the serious science, there's no evidence to endorse the claims, though one Otago University study showed coconut oil wasn't quite as bad as butter when it came to raising cholesterol levels.

Auckland University of Technology Professor of Public Health Grant Schofield said coconut oil was not necessarily bad for you, but there was no evidence it would live up to the more extreme claims.

So how did my experiment go?

The first week was fine, I mainly used the coconut oil to fry vegetables each night. By the middle of the second week I was sick of stir-fried dinner and over everything tasting like coconut…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details