Coconut oil can reduce heart ailments
Disna Mudalige and Nadeesha Warnasuriya
Coconut oil consists of more phenolic compounds, which can reduce the
risk of coronary heart disease through complex biochemical mechanisms,
said Prof Kapila Seneviratne of the Faculty of Science of the University
of Kelaniya.
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Food for
thought
* More phenolic compounds in
coconut oil
* GI in low balanced rice
meal |
He was speaking at the commemorative ceremony organized by the
National Research Council (NRC) of Sri Lanka at the Hilton Hotel to mark
10 years of service to the nation last week.
Referring to their research he said: “We have discovered that the
content of phenolic antioxidants of traditional coconut oil is six to
seven times higher than that of copra oil or virgin coconut oil.
Coconut oil prepared by pressing copra, virgin coconut oil and
traditionally prepared coconut oil by boiling coconut milk were taken
for this study.
“Our experiments have also shown that Poonac is a rich source of
phenolic substances and these phenolic compounds can be mixed with copra
oil to improve the nutritional quality of copra oil,” he added.
Dr Sagarika Ekanayake of the Faculty of Science of the University of
Sri Jayewardenepura noted that by eating typical Sri Lankan food such as
roti, rice mixed meals, legumes and banana varieties, will
systematically decrease glucose formation compared to other food such as
hoppers, string hoppers, pittu and rice and gravy.
This study was done by using the Glycaemic Index (GI) which ranks
carbohydrate rich food items according to the blood glucose response
following a meal. “It was interesting to note that a balanced rice meal
had a low GI, and even a food with high GI can be mixed with a low or
medium GI food to reduce its GI” she said.
“This discovery will be important for diabetic individuals as the
rise of glucose in blood will be slow, for medical practitioners,
dieticians involved in planning diets for high risk groups as well as
diet conscious healthy individuals. There is a scarcity of GI data
pertaining to Sri Lankan foods and the Asian population is not very
familiar with the concept of GI,” she added.
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