Coconut oil &UC

V_Keto_V

belmarrahealth.com/ulcerative-colitis-flare-up-more-likely-with-high-consumption-of-certain-fatty-acids-and-coconut-oil-study/

Because there is no one best answer to any problem for everyone...never black or white but always shades of gray. Anyone else find that there are conflicting nutrition articles on whether coconut oil is pro inflammatory vs. anti inflammatory? Not that pro inflammatory foods are detrimental or inferior (way too simplistic)

wabmester

It's not just mryistic acid. Several SFA's are/were thought to cause inflammation, and the mechanism was assumed to be via activation of toll-like receptors:
Saturated Fatty Acids and Inflammation: Who Pays the Toll?

But that theory is controversial:
Fatty acids do not pay the toll: effect of SFA and PUFA on human adipose tissue and mature adipocytes inflammation

I'm starting to lean towards SFA's being harmless, but the science is still unsettled.

V_Keto_V

Yes, SFAs seem neutral overall & I still incorporate them into diet whether animal or vegetable based. There's just too much blank label statements about inflammation being the cause of...everything according to some "experts"

Dragonwolf

I suspect that if coconut oil is linked to UC flareups, it's not actually because of the fatty acids (or at least not just due to the fatty acids), but rather the salicylate content. NSAIDs like aspirin are known to cause flareups due to the salicylate content, and coconut oil is high in it.

On a side note, as for dairy being a culprit, too, again the issue of confounding factors come into play. It's well known that only a portion of the population still produces lactase in order to digest lactose, and A1 beta casein (the type found in most commercial milks) is known to be hard to digest and is a known trigger for many issues. Then, there's the sulfur content in dairy that is mentioned in passing.

In other words, there are far more things about dairy and coconut products that could be contributing to it. Without seeing the study, itself, it's difficult to draw conclusions on how they came to the conclusion that it's the fatty acids, themselves, and not the myriad other compounds that are already known to trigger.