Coconut oil has been said to provide better immunity, cause weight loss, protect against cancer and heart disease, and even slow down or prevent dementia.

Preventing heart disease?

Basaraba said there was a study done in 2011 in which nearly 2,000 Filipino women aged 35 to 69 cooked with virgin coconut oil (non-hydrogenated or processed).

The participants were found to have improved levels of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, "the healthy kind of cholesterol levels," Basaraba said, compared to those women who used less coconut oil.

Weight loss?

Basaraba said the claim that coconut oil can assist in weight loss hasn't been proven conclusively, and many of those studies have been done on mice, so the findings may not translate to our species.

However there is a 2009 study which showed that dieting women who took coconut oil lost slightly more belly fat than those who weren't consuming it.

Slowing the effects of dementia?

Basaraba said the belief that coconut oil could slow or even prevent dementia such as Alzheimer's stems from a testimonial from Florida physician Mary Newport.

Newport's husband was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in his fifties, and she began giving him a few tablespoons of coconut oil every day.

Newport claimed that he showed steady improvement with a clock drawing test — a type of cognition test where a person puts the numbers and hands of a clock in the correct position.

"The theory behind why it could make a difference is that coconut oil might provide a kind of alternate fuel for the brain — ketones, instead of sugar, for fuel ... because brain cells in Alzheimer's seem to lose the ability to use sugar for metabolism for its fuel."

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