Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Why MCT Oil Is Basically a Scam (According to Science)

Episode Date: October 14, 2019

“Lose fat by drinking fat!” “Turn on the fat-burning power of ketosis with the flip of a switch!” “Supercharge your brain with this super-oil!” These are just a few of the many reasons MCT oil peddlers say you should give them your money (and a lot of it—this stuff ain’t cheap). In fact, according to many of these self-styled gurus and “biohackers,” MCT oil is one of the most effective supplements you can take for upgrading your mind and body. Just a few tablespoons per day, they say, and you’ll drop weight, turn on ketosis (which can help you drop more weight), boost exercise performance, and increase your brainpower . . . and that’s just the first week! Now, how much would you expect to pay for such a privilege? Hundreds? Thousands? Billions? Well, would you believe that it’ll only set you back a mere $1.60 per ounce!? Yes, that’s right, for just $205 per gallon, you too can basically have superpowers! You don’t want just any MCT oil, though. You want mine, which is grass-fed, gluten-free, organic, non-GMO, blah blah blah will that be cash or credit? Okay, so I think you get the point. Here’s the long story short: The benefits of MCT oil have been wildly inflated by the reigning health and fitness propagandists and their minions and unwitting dupes. As you’ll soon see, it’s more or less just another overpriced, overhyped weight loss supplement that doesn’t work as advertised. Let’s get started. 3:56 - What is MCT oil? 8:38 - What are the benefits of MCT oil? 17:30 - What is the research on MCT oil and weight loss? 22:31 - Does MCT oil help you lose weight faster on a ketogenic diet? 24:34 - Does MCT oil lower cholesterol levels and improve your heart health? 28:20 - Does MCT oil improve athletic performance? 32:35 - Does MCT oil improve brain function? 35:57 - Is MCT oil better than coconut oil? 40:01 - What are the side effects of MCT oil? Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter! Click here: https://www.legionathletics.com/signup/

Hey, Mike here. And if you like what I'm doing here on the podcast and elsewhere, and if you want to help me help more people get into the best shape of their lives, please do consider supporting my sports nutrition company, Legion Athletics, which produces 100% natural evidence-based health and fitness supplements, including protein powders and protein bars, pre-workout and post-workout supplements, fat burners, multivitamins, joint support, and more. Head over to www.LegionAthletics.com now to check it out. And just to show how much I appreciate my podcast peeps, use the coupon code MFL at checkout and you will save 10% on your entire order and it'll ship free if you are anywhere in the United States. And if you're not, it'll ship free if your order is over $100. So again, if you appreciate my work and if you want to see more of it, please do consider supporting me so I can keep doing what I love, like producing podcasts like this. Hey there, I'm Mike and this is Muscle

for Life. Welcome to another episode. This time around, it's just going to be me and I'm going to be talking to you about MCT oil and why it is basically a scam, which really shouldn't come as a big surprise when you consider the most common claims that MCT oil peddlers are making about this stuff and what they are saying it can do for you. They're saying that you can simply lose fat by drinking this special kind of fat. They say that MCT oil turns on the fat burning power of ketosis with the flip of a switch. They say it supercharges your brain. They call it a super oil. And even one of the most effective supplements you can take for biohacking or upgrading your mind and body. All you got to do, these guys and gals say, is just take a few tablespoons of MCT oil per day and

you're going to start dropping weight. You are going to turn on ketosis in your body, which is going to help you drop even more weight. You are going to boost your exercise performance, increase your brain power. And that's just the first week. Now, how much would you expect to pay for such a privilege? Maybe hundreds of dollars, thousands, billions? Well, would you believe that it'll only set you back a mere dollar and 60 cents per ounce? Yes, that's right, my friend. For just $205 per gallon, you too can basically have superpowers. But watch out because you don't just want any MCT oil. You want my MCT oil because it is grass-fed, gluten-free, organic, non-GMO, so on and so forth, blah, blah, blah. We take all major credit cards. All right, that was my MCT oil shyster impersonation.

How did I do? Are you ready to order? Anyway, the long story short is this MCT oil stuff has been wildly inflated by some of the reigning health and fitness propaganda champions and their minions and unwitting dupes. And as you will soon learn in this podcast, MCT oil is really just another overpriced, overhyped weight loss health optimization supplement that simply does not work as advertised. And even better, what little MCT oil may be able to do for you can be achieved for a lot less money with just coconut oil. All right, let's get into it. Let's start at the top with what is MCT oil? Well, MCT is an acronym and it stands for medium chain triglyceride and it is a type of fat. Now to understand what makes MCTs different than other kinds of fat, let's start with triglyceride. What is a triglyceride? Well, that is the scientific word for a fat molecule. Pretty simple. One triglyceride molecule is made up of three fatty acid molecules combined with one molecule of glycerol. And fatty acids are strings of carbon atoms with hydrogen and oxygen atoms attached. Now, fatty acids are categorized according to how many carbon atoms they contain,

and there are three main categories. You have long-chain triglycerides, which contain 13 or more carbon atoms. You have medium-chain triglycerides, which contain 6 to 12 carbon atoms, and you have short-chain triglycerides, which contain 2 to 5 carbon atoms. Now, long-chain triglycerides, LCTs, are the most common form of fat found in food. It's the most common form of fat that we eat. Now, medium chain triglycerides, MCTs, are also found in some foods, but not many. The main sources being coconut and palm kernel oil and full-fat dairy. And rounding out the list is short-chain triglycerides, SCTs, and those can be found in some foods as well and are thought to have some health benefits, but most of us get the majority of our SCTs from fiber, which is then

broken down in the gut by bacteria. So MCT oil is simply a liquid composed entirely of medium chain triglycerides that have typically been isolated from coconut oil or palm oil. And MCT oil is usually odorless, tasteless, and colorless. Okay, so now let's talk about MCT oil is converted into small droplets that are then covered with the additive, which then gives it a powder-like consistency. Then the mix of oil and the additives are spray dried to remove any remaining water, leaving a powder that's roughly the consistency of whey protein powder. And generally speaking, MCT oil powder contains about 70 to 80% MCT oil by weight with the remaining being the additive or additives if they're using multiple kinds of

absorbents. Now you can find quite a few companies that advertise their MCT oil powder as additive free, but that's simply not true. Pure MCT oil is always clear or slightly opaque, tasteless, odorless, and liquid at room temperature. And to turn it into a powder requires combining it with additives. It can't be additive-free and a powder. Now, typically, additional substances are added to MCT oil powder as well to prevent it from clumping or absorbing moisture. And silicon dioxide is a common. Another claim often made by MCT oil powder marketers is that it's easier on your stomach than oil, but there's no evidence for that. And it's also worth noting that the oil gets separated

from the other substances that are used to turn it into a powder during digestion. So the end result is going to be more or less the same as just taking the oil. You should also know that due to the additives in the MCT oil powder, it also generally raises insulin and blood glucose levels, at least a little bit, and especially if you are having a large amount. And that isn't a problem in and of itself, but it can be undesirable if you are trying to follow a very low carb or even a ketogenic diet. You pay quite a premium for MCT oil powder as well. I mean, MCT oil is already expensive as it is, but the powders generally cost anywhere from 50 to 100% more than the oil. So the takeaway here is just that the MCT oil powder is basically just a dry form of MCT oil. And going forward, I'm just going to refer to both of them as MCT oil for the purposes of this

discussion. Now let's talk about benefits, at least purported benefits of MCT oil was originally created to nourish people who had trouble absorbing other forms of fat. So for example, it was often given to people who had digestive infections, gallbladder surgery, or other medical issues that prevented them from properly digesting long chain triglycerides. Now that's of course not why most people supplement with MCT oil. Most people are gulping it down to lose weight, to increase ketone production, to improve cardiovascular health, increase athletic performance, improve brain function. Those are really the key selling points. And unfortunately, when you look into the scientific literature on MCT oil, you learn that the evidence is not on its side in every one of those cases.

So let's talk about weight loss first, just because this is one of the best selling claims. This is one of the most persuasive claims, is that MCT oil is a weight loss aid. And the pitch is very simple. It is the magic bullet, the quick fix pitch. Just eat or drink a few tablespoons of this goop every day and you're going to lose body fat just like that, simple, clean. Others claim that it won't necessarily help you lose body fat faster, but instead is a calorie-free type of fat that your body doesn't store as body fat. Now, YouTube quacks and gurus love to support claims like those with a whiteboard full of intricate diagrams of complex physiological processes, and their spiel usually boils down to this. MCTs bypass the normal digestive processes that lead to fat storage and instead are shuttled directly into

the mitochondria, the little energy-producing power plants in our cells, where they are burned for energy. In other words, the idea is MCTs are preferentially used for immediate energy production rather than energy storage in the way of body fat. And you know, this is technically true. MCTs are rarely stored as body fat, but this isn't unique to MCTs and it does not mean that they can't lead to fat gain. As you probably know, the laws of energy balance dictate that your body burns some of the calories you eat for energy and stores some for future energy needs, and it stores them in the form of body fat. And this occurs after every meal, regardless of what you eat. Now, what does change based on what you eat is which foods are preferentially burned for immediate energy needs and which ones are stored as body fat. by the way, digested, absorbed, and not used for energy because the body has no easy way to store

large amounts of these substances. It has no easy way to turn them into body fat. And in the case of alcohol, it is also a poison. I mean, it's toxic, so it needs to be disposed of quickly. Now, despite what you have maybe heard, this is also partly true of carbohydrate. When you eat carbs, your body taps into them for immediate energy first and then stores the leftovers, so to speak, primarily in the form of glycogen, which is then stored in the muscles and liver. Only after glycogen stores are topped off, though, will the body start to convert carbs into body fat. And even then, that process, which is called de novo lipogenesis, is rather inefficient.

And that's why research has shown that very active people, especially people with above average levels of muscle mass and very high levels of physical activity can eat a lot of carbs before they start gaining fat. The body has quite a few different things that it can do with carbohydrate other than store it as fat. And especially when you have a lot of muscle and you're using that muscle a lot. Dietary fat, however, is preferentially and readily converted into body fat and is preferentially and readily stored as body fat. So what that means then is if your body doesn't need to burn the dietary fat right away for energy because it has some carbs, for example, that it would rather burn for energy or maybe even some protein or alcohol that it

needs to process, the dietary fat that you eat will be immediately stored as body fat. And so in a sense, dietary fat is more fattening than protein or carbohydrate if we look at it in terms of an individual meal and not as energy intake on the whole. Of course, that doesn't mean that you are going to get fat if you eat a lot of dietary fat. It just means that if we look at an individual meal, you are going to gain more fat from that meal if it is a high fat meal than if it is a low fat meal. And if it's low fat, it could be high protein and or high carb. It doesn't matter. It's just the dietary fat in a meal is going to primarily determine how much body fat you store from that meal. Okay, so what about MCTs? Well, MCTs behave similarly in the

body to carbs in that under normal circumstances, they are preferentially burned for immediate energy instead of being stored as body fat. That doesn't mean though that they can't contribute to fat gain. MCTs can in two different ways. One, they can shut down fat burning in the body and they can increase the storage of dietary fat as body fat. And two, they can be stored as body fat when in a calorie surplus. And both of those things have been demonstrated in scientific research. So when you eat MCTs, the body behaves more or less exactly as you'd expect according to the first law of thermodynamics. If you are eating more calories,

then you're burning, you're going to gain weight. And if you're eating fewer calories, then you're burning, you're going to lose weight. And that's true regardless of whether you are eating MCTs or fat from olive oil, bacon cheese, or anything else. It's also true though, that if we look at an individual meal, MCTs will result in less fat gain from that meal than LCTs. So similar to carbohydrate, when you eat MCTs, let's say it's a part of a mixed meal, your body's going to preferentially burn them and store the LCTs as body fat. But that doesn't mean that you can somehow hack energy balance by replacing half of your diet to your LCT calories with MCT calories, and all of a sudden start losing fat faster. Another metabolic trick, so to speak, that MCTs

have up their sleeve is research shows they have a higher thermic effect than other kinds of fats. It's about 10 to 15% in the case of MCTs versus 0 to 3% for LCTs. And if you're not familiar with thermic effect, it's just simply the energy cost of digesting and processing food. So what that means then is that about 10 to 15% of the calories contained in MCTs are burned during digestion. And because of that, then they have slightly fewer calories per gram than LCTs. LCTs have about nine calories per gram and MCTs have about eight calories per gram. Interesting, but not going to make a difference in terms of weight loss. So just to make that crystal clear, let's say you are eating 50 grams of fat per day, regular old fat LCTs, and you decide to replace half of those calories with MCTs. By doing this,

you'd be going from about 450 calories of fat per day to about 425 calories of fat per day. So that is a negligible reduction in calorie intake. You could just go walk for five extra minutes a day at like a moderate pace instead. Now, if you are still skeptical because you've heard so many things about how great MCTs are for losing weight, let's quickly review some research on the matter. One of the best clinical studies on the effects of MCT oil on weight loss was conducted by scientists at Columbia University. And in this study, the researchers divided 49 overweight men and women aged 19 to 15 to two groups. Group one consumed 18 to 24 grams of MCT oil every day for four months, the women 18, the men 24, and group two

consumed 18 to 24 grams of olive oil every day for four months. Again, 18 grams for women, 24 grams for men. Now, both groups were required to maintain their weight for six months before the study to ensure they weren't already losing or gaining weight before beginning the experiment. And during the study, the men were instructed to eat 1,800 calories per day and the women were instructed to eat 1,500 calories per day with the intention of producing weight loss. Everyone was also taught how to track and prepare meals by a dietician. And they also met with a member of the research team every week to have their waists and their weights measured. Additionally, the researchers used a DEXA scan to

measure the body composition of the participants before and after the study. So it was a well designed and well executed study. The results, group one lost five pounds of fat and group two lost one and a half pounds of fat. And both groups reduced their waist circumference about the same amount. Now, if I were trying to sell you MCT oil, I would just leave it at that. I'd drop the mic and I would tell you about my patent perpetually pending pots of placebo potions, pills, and powders, but I'm just a humble muscle merchant. So let's carry on with this discussion because those results would be impressive if the study only lasted two weeks, but it lasted four months. And that means that these results are far less meaningful. It means

that the group consuming MCT oil lost about a quarter pound more fat per month, which is statistically significant, but pretty trivial in terms of bottom line results. in this study were not accurately tracking their food intake because if they were, they would have lost a lot more weight than they did, like four to 10 times more weight than they did. And if that's true, then it follows that group one, the MCT oil group, that their superior weight loss was likely due to better dietary habits, not MCT oil. If we would have seen a lot more weight loss in group two, and then a lot more than that in group one, that would have been more promising. And so, despite its flaws, this is one of the best studies we have on MCT oil and weight loss. And if we look at other similar studies, it paints an even bleaker picture. For example, studies conducted by researchers at McGill University found MCT oil produced even less fat loss under similar

conditions. The studies were similar to the one that we just reviewed and the results were even worse. There is also a review study that was conducted by scientists at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. And the researchers looked at all of the controlled trials on MCT oil and weight loss from the year 2000 to 2010. And they narrowed this down to 14 studies that met their quality criteria. And what they found is six of the papers showed moderate improvements in body weight. Eight failed to show any change in body weight. One showed an improvement in satiety and fullness, and four showed a small increase in energy expenditure, but little to no weight loss. So what that tells us then is the weight of the evidence says that MCT oil does not help with

weight loss to any significant degree. Hey, quickly, before we carry on, if you are liking my podcast, would you please help spread the word about it? because no amount of marketing or advertising gimmicks can match the power of word of mouth. So if you are enjoying this episode and you think of someone else who might enjoy it as well, please do tell them about it. It really helps me. And if you are going to post about it on social media, definitely tag me so I can say thank you. You can find me on Instagram at MuscleForLifeFitness, Twitter at MuscleForLife, and Facebook at MuscleForLifeFitness. All right, let's talk about MCT oil and ketones now because it is popular among the ketogenic dieters. And in case you're not familiar with the keto diet, it involves eating little to no carbs

and that forces the body to produce and burn ketones instead of glucose. Ketones are an alternative source of fuel for the body. Now, the body produces these ketones by breaking down dietary or body fat, and some fats are more easily converted into ketones than others, including MCTs. Now, the keto zealots will tell you that the ketogenic diet helps you lose fat faster than a normal balanced diet, and then the ketogenic diet plus MCTs will help you lose fat even faster than that, but science disagrees on both of these points. First, several studies have shown that a ketogenic diet does not help you lose fat faster than a normal balanced diet, so long as protein and calories are matched. And if you want to learn more about that in particular,

I did record a podcast on the ketogenic some time ago. I probably posted it a year or two ago. And if you search my feed, you'll find it. And I probably will record another podcast on the keto diet sometime in the next couple of months, simply because it is so popular right now. And some new research has come out since I recorded that first episode. Anyway, the point is the claim that the keto diet helps you lose fat faster is not true. And then the claim that adding MCT oil to the ketogenic diet makes it better for fat loss is also not true because while it can raise ketone levels, research shows that doing that, that simply raising your ketone levels does not increase fat burning. Again, it just comes down to calories here and calories and protein. Those are the two most

important elements of any weight loss diet. What you do beyond that just doesn't matter very much. Okay, let's move on to MCT oil and cardiovascular health because many MCT peddlers say that it's going to help you lower your cholesterol levels and it's going to improve your heart health. And the truth here is the evidence is a bit of a mixed bag. There's a study that was conducted by scientists at Boston University and they found that giving diabetics 18 grams of MCT oil per day helped boost their HDL, their good cholesterol levels, and reduce their LDL, their quote-unquote bad cholesterol levels, by a small margin. And I know that cholesterol is not that simple, but for the purpose of this discussion, that'll be fine.

And that sounds great, but there was a major confounding factor, and that is that the people in the study also lost weight, which we know can improve cholesterol levels by itself. So it's impossible to say whether the improvement that the researchers saw was due to the MCT oil or the weight loss. And it's also worth keeping in mind that the participants triglyceride levels, which is another important marker of heart health, didn't change at all, only cholesterol. Now, on the other hand, we have a study that was conducted by scientists at the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University, and the results were quite different. In this case, 17 young men followed both of two dietary protocols. So they followed one, and then they took a two-week break,

and they followed the other. The first was replacing daily fat intake with 70 grams of MCT oil for 21 days, and the other dietary protocol was replacing their daily fat intake with 70 grams of high oleic sunflower oil, which is basically a colorless, tasteless olive oil equivalent. And they did that also for 21 days. So again, the men followed both tests of everyone's total cholesterol, LDL, HDL, and VLDL cholesterol, which is a kind of LDL cholesterol that's closely associated with heart disease, as well as triglycerides and glucose levels. And they did that before and after each dietary intervention to see what would happen. What happened is the MCT oil performed terribly. Compared to the sunflower oil, it increased total cholesterol by 11%. It increased LDL cholesterol by 12%. It increased VLDL cholesterol by 32%. That's bad. It increased the participants triglycerides by 22% and it slightly increased resting glucose levels.

So in other words, by replacing their daily fat intake with MCT oil, these people wrecked their blood results. Another study that is worth reviewing was conducted by researchers at Vanderbilt University, and they found that overfeeding people with MCT oil tripled their triglyceride levels in just three days, whereas long-chain triglycerides in the form of soybean oil, in this case, had no effect on triglyceride levels. So my point is the jury is still out as to whether MCTs are good or bad or neutral for our heart health. But given the evidence that we have currently, I would say it's probably best to play it

safe and only consume small to moderate amounts of MCTs if you're going to consume them at all. Now, what about athletic performance? if you're going to consume them at all. Now, what about athletic performance? High-fat diets are all the rage right now and are even catching on among athletes who hope to improve their performance as well as enhance their recovery and their health and well-being. And as MCT oil is a rapidly digested and processed source of pure fat. It's not surprising that this stuff has also caught on among athletes, but there's more because many high-fat dieters also believe that MCT oil directly enhances physical performance, regardless of whether your diet is

high-fat or high-carb. Is this true? Well, the main way that MCTs can purportedly accomplish this, the pitch is they reduce the amount of glycogen that is used during exercise. Now, glycogen is a form of carbohydrate that's stored in the muscles and liver, and it is gobbled up during exercise and especially intense exercise and endurance exercise. And when it runs low, when your body's glycogen stores start to get low, performance declines. So anything that can help preserve your glycogen stores can potentially improve your physical performance. And there is some evidence to support this theory and MCTs. For example, proponents of MCT oil for six weeks allowed them to swim significantly longer than mice fed a diet of LCTs. Interesting, but far from conclusive because we humans are not big mice. You can't just extrapolate animal research to humans. And especially when the majority of similar studies actually conducted

with humans found that MCT oil either doesn't improve performance or actually decreases it. So the best study to date that we have on this is a review that was conducted by Miriam Clegg at the University of Oxford. Now, Miriam parsed through decades of literature on MCT oil and exercise performance. And after reviewing a lot of data, she concluded that the effect of MCT feeding on exercise or performance has not been positive. And that was her being considerate, being polite, because of the 17 studies that she examined, 10 found MCT oil did nothing for performance. And in one of the studies, scientists ensured the subject's glycogen stores were fully depleted before testing the effects of the oil, which of course gave it its

best chances of boosting performance, and it still failed. Five of the studies that she reviewed found MCT oil reduced performance due to gastrointestinal discomfort, which is a side effect, a common side effect of consuming lots of MCT oil. And finally, there were just two studies that found that consuming large amounts of MCT oil reduced glycogen usage during exercise, but even then, there still was no improvement in performance. And you will find similar results in studies on high-fat diets and endurance exercise. I mean, scientists have known for decades now that consuming large amounts of dietary fat increases the amount of fat that you burn during exercise, which sounds nice, but it also impairs your ability to burn carbohydrates. And overall, the research shows that that has a negative effect on performance because functioning

optimally in most sports requires your body to be able to burn carbohydrate efficiently. Now, as far as more intense forms of exercise, high intensity stuff like weightlifting, sprinting, and the like, there's no evidence that MCT oil can help with those types of activities and there's no reason to think that it would. Moving on, MCT oil and brain function. This is another big one because many marketers claim this stuff is going to help you focus. It's going to improve your energy levels. It's going to improve your cognitive capabilities, your processing power. And often they say this is because MCT oil is absorbed more rapidly than other fats.

And therefore that somehow makes it the perfect brain food. And this is just silly. Simply eating more food, whether it's fat, carbs, or protein, does not acutely boost brain function, regardless of how quickly or how slowly it is processed. Like every other organ in the body, the brain requires a certain amount of energy to function optimally, and just providing more doesn't supercharge it, doesn't boost its performance. Those additional calories either get stored or burned or a combination of both. Additionally, your brain never truly gets low on energy, even when you go for extended periods without food, even when you fast for long periods of time. Because when you do that, if you do go for a while without food, your body just

continues to break down body fat to provide your brain and the rest of your body with a steady stream of energy. Therefore, even if you hadn't eaten in, let's say, a week, slurping down some MCTs is not going to make a significant difference in your brain function. Now, of course, if you were to starve yourself, you are going to feel tired, but that has more to do with changes in hormones than your brain just running low on energy. Now, another point worth noting here is as far as energy sources go, MCT oil is a fairly slow burning fuel compared to other foods. Ironically, it's the opposite of what the charlatans say. So for example, simple carbs like sugar enter the bloodstream within 20 to 30 minutes or so of being eaten. And there is very little research

on how long it takes MCT oil to digest and enter the bloodstream. But we do know that the digestion process is definitely more involved. And so it is fair to assume that it's going to take longer for the MCT oil to be processed than simple carbs. And lastly, on this MCT and brain boosting point, there is no evidence that MCT oil offers any cognitive benefits and for the reasons that I just gave. So everything that you read and you hear and you see about MCT oil affecting brain function is based on mechanistic meandering and specious speculation, not hard evidence. Those claims have never been scientifically tested with clinical trials, and there is little reason to think that they would pan out if tested properly.

So this is just yet another example of unscrupulous marketers taking a relatively unexciting physiological fact, MCTs digest faster and in a different way than other fats, and then spinning it into a sales pitch. MCT is high octane brain fuel. Don't fall for it. All right, now let's talk about MCT oil versus coconut oil. Which one's better? Now let's talk about MCT oil versus coconut oil. Which one's better? This is a common question because most MCT oil is extracted from coconut oil or palm kernel oil, both of which are high

in MCTs. So then many people wonder, okay, so if these foods are naturally high in MCTs, maybe I should just save some money and eat the coconut oil or the palm oil instead of buying the expensive MCT oil. So what's a better source of MCTs, the straight MCT oil or the coconut oil or palm oil? Well, the answer has to do with the fatty acid composition of these oils. And as coconut oil is really the main one that people are concerned with because it's readily available, palm kernel oil, not so much. Let's just talk about that. So coconut oil is about 48% lauric acid, 16% myristic acid, 10% palmitic acid, 8% decanoic acid, 7% caprylic acid, 6.5% oleic acid, and 5% of other forms of fatty acids. And so what you immediately see then is the predominant fatty acid in coconut oil is lauric acid at 48%, which has 12 carbon atoms per fatty

acid molecule, barely qualifying it as an MCT. You know, we recall that MCTs have a carbon chain between 6 and 12 carbon atoms, and the longer the chain, the closer we get to being a long-chain triglyceride. And the shorter with only eight carbon atoms per fatty acid molecule. And this is why many studies on MCT oil have used caprylic acid instead of lauric acid. Now, if we look back to the coconut oil, we have myristic, palmitic, and oleic acid. Now, if we go back to the fatty acid breakdown of coconut oil, we see that myristic acid, palmitic acid, and oleic acid together make up about 33% of the fat in coconut oil. And those are long chain triglycerides and don't have any of the special properties of MCTs. So what that means then, if you are consuming coconut oil primarily for the MCTs, 33% of the calories are just tag along. They're LCTs. And lastly, on the fatty acid breakdown, we have the caprylic and we have the decanoic acid, which have 8 and 10 carbon atoms in each fatty acid molecule respectively. And those then are the real winners as far as the MCTs go. So the downside here is pretty obvious. The best MCTs in coconut oil only make up about 15%

of its fat content. That means then you'd have to eat a fuckload of it just to get 15 grams of those high quality MCTs of the caprylic and decanoic acid. You have to eat a hundred grams of coconut oil to do it. That's a thousand calories of coconut oil just to get 15 grams of MCTs. And even if you include lauric acid as an MCT, which it barely is, you would still need to eat 25 grams of coconut oil, which is 225 calories, to get 15 grams of MCTs. And when you consider that in light of everything that we've discussed, you also realize that none of it really matters because there's no good reason to go out of your way to consume high amounts of MCTs unless you are particularly excited about the small amount of additional energy that is required to digest them.

And if that's the case, then hey, coconut oil. Go with that. It's cheap. It tastes good. It smells good. And I would definitely recommend that over some overpriced, overhyped bottle of MCT oil. Let's talk about side effects quickly because there are sideped bottle of MCT oil. Let's talk about side effects quickly because there are side effects of taking MCT oil. And many people learn this quickly when they start mixing

it into their coffee and such. Now, the primary side effects are nausea, indigestion, and diarrhea. And this typically occurs when large amounts of MCTs are consumed in a short period. So think oil shots or a very fatty meal. Now, it's also possible that consuming large amounts of MCT oil can increase your LDL cholesterol and triglyceride levels, which could have negative long-term effects on your heart health. And lastly, it bears repeating that if you consume MCTs willy-nilly, another side effect you might not like is weight gain because MCT oil is still calorie dense and it's still very easy to overconsume compared to many other foods that you could be using your calories on. So the bottom line on MCT oil is I liken it to collagen protein. It has quickly become a major cash cow for health and fitness

con men and con women and quacks and gurus, which immediately makes it a red flag. Whenever you see a supplement of any kind, let alone a weight loss supplement hitting the scene with widespread fanfare, be very skeptical because chances are it is just another scam. That should be your assumption. The supplement and the person promoting it should be considered guilty until proven innocent because MCT oil is essentially a scam. It is not going to help you lose weight faster, regardless of what kind of diet you're following, high fat, low fat, keto, whatever. It does not improve your heart health and in fact, may increase the risk of heart disease if eaten in large amounts. MCT oil does not improve your endurance, your strength, your explosiveness, or any other facet of your exercise performance or your physical performance in any way. And in fact, it may reduce your performance by just upsetting your stomach. And MCT does not, MCT oil does not improve your cognition. It does not improve your focus or your energy levels. What it can do though is make you nauseous, give you an upset stomach and make you shit yourself.

So at the end of the day, MCT oil is just an overhyped, overpriced and utterly ordinary alternative to other kinds of oils. Do your wallet a favor and do yourself a favor and don't buy it. But if I have failed to convince you and you are still resolved to see if supplementing with MCTs can do something for you, just go with coconut oil because it's going to save you money unless you are also resolved to waste as much money as possible. Then yes, please do pay a couple hundred dollars a gallon for the sexiest, shiniest bottle of MCT oil you can find, but pay attention to how your body responds. Chances are you're not going to notice anything in the way of benefits. Hey, Mike here. And if you like what I'm doing here on the podcast and elsewhere,

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