Summary: Hi there! This is Krista with Episode #168 on the Wag Out Loud pawdcast. We are about to get into all of the benefits of coconut oil for your dog, but did you know that it is considered to have natural antibacterial, antiviral and antifungal properties? Well, I use coconut oil every day to brush Winston's teeth and he just loves the taste. Welcome to the Wag Out Loud pawdcast, where we are obsessed with bringing you helpful tips on canine health care, nutrition, and overall wellbeing. If you'd like to support the show, check out the amazing online events, products and resources that I personally recommend on the Wag Out Loud website. I'm your host, Krista and I'm super excited to be bringing you yet another tail wagging episode. Co-Founders of Coco Therapy, and sisters, Charisa Antigua and Carmina O’Connor come from long line of coconut oil producers. Their family has been growing coconuts and making coconut oil for three generations in their family farm in the Philippines. Their in-depth knowledge about coconut oil and fats, along with their certification in Companion Animal Nutrition, Charisa and Carmina are uniquely well-informed on animal nutrition and fats and lipids. Hello, dog lovers. Are you confused about giving your dog coconut oil? I think there's a lot of confusion out there. But we are here with Charisa Antigua and Carmina O'Connor, and they're going to help dispel the top coconut oil myths that are going out there and why it is very healthy to give your dog coconut oil. So ladies, I want to welcome you to the show. I've been so excited to have you on. Hi Krista. Thanks for having us. We're happy to be here. Good, good, good. Well, why don't you both quickly introduce yourselves and tell us what got you into animal nutrition. And especially passionate about coconut oil? I can start. I'm Carmina O'Connor. I'm Charisa. And we come from a family that's been making and producing coconuts. And we have a family farm and facility that has been making coconut products for three generations. So we've always been into coconut oil and coconut products. And so it's been a huge interest of our families. We've known the health benefits since we were little kids growing up, my grandmother used to use it for us, you know as medicine and food. And we also used to use it for our pets growing up. So that's how we got into it. And we've always been into animals and animal nutrition as well. You can tell them yeah, we've long time ago, decades ago, we did want to become veterinarians, but you know, the path we choose isn't necessarily the paths that's chosen for you. But we did take our we've completed our certification in companion animal nutrition with the University of Illinois. So that's one good thing that we did about over a year ago. So it really just helped layer all our knowledge, our love for nutrition and animals altogether. And I love coconut oil, which is why we started Coco Therapy. Three Types of Coconut Oil Okay, well, let's first break it down. There are three types of coconut oil. Can you tell us about the differences? Yeah, basically, the main types of coconut oil is the Therapeutic Grade coconut oil, which is what we sell and what we have. It's virgin coconut oil. It's unrefined and it's cold pressed. Ours is organic and non GMO verified as well. But this is really high levels of medium chain fatty acids, specifically lauric acid and very low moisture content. You do have cosmetic grade coconut oils and a lot of those are actually refined coconut oil so they can be bleached and you use hexane to extract the oil. They are deodorized a lot of them doesn't have any smell or taste of coconut. They are used in shampoos and conditioners for cosmetic reasons. So that's refined that's refined coconut oil and or that's yeah, and then there is also food grade coconut oil, which is meant for food and cooking. It's also it can be refined or unrefined. So virgin or not virgin either or, and the levels of lauric acid are also could be lower. So those are the main three different kinds of coconut oil. Okay, so if a coconut oil product says extra virgin, Is that any better? Is Extra Virgin Coconut Oil Better? No, there's actually no such thing as extra virgin when it comes to coconut oil. virgin coconut oil just means it's been unrefined they did not use any chemicals to make it to extract the oil from the coconut. Extra virgin is used in the olive oil industry for pressing. So when they say extra virgin, it's a first press for olive oil. But it doesn't work that way for coconut. So if they say extra virgin coconut oil, it's probably a marketing ploy. You can only press coconut oil once Yeah, you should press coconut oil once Yeah, once. Yeah, unlike olive oil, you're able to press the olives multiple times. So the word extra virgin applies to first press olive oil, but not coconut oil. Why Do Some Not Think Coconut Oil is Healthy? Okay, well, that's good to know. All right, let's the elephant in the room a couple of years ago. I mean, everybody was talking about coconut oil, and I love it for myself, I love it for my dog. And then a large dog magazine, all of a sudden published that coconut oil is not good for our dogs, everybody beware. And it became this big scare tactic almost. What happened? Well, I think there's first of all, coconut oil and fats in general is so misunderstood. Because there's a lot of people or some people who don't understand fats that say fats will cause inflammation. But what they don't really get into is there's so many different kinds of fats, and so many different kinds of reasons why fats cause inflammation. So an article came out and said that coconut oil specifically causes metabolic endotoxemia. So it sounds like a very scary word, but all it is it's basically metabolic is toxins produced in your body, metabolically. So are they say when you eat coconut oil, um, toxins are released in your blood, and it's bad for you, and it causes inflammation, but it's not quite accurate because so endotoxins live in our bodies have a bacteria, gram positive and gram negative bacteria good and bad. And there's, um, an endotoxin that lives on the outer casing of gram negative bacteria, called lipo polysaccharide, or LPs. So what happens is, we all know that coconut oil kills bacteria, specifically bad bacteria, it's antibacterial, right? So when you eat coconut oil, it kills the gram negative bacteria in your gut, in your intestines, what happens is, then the LPs and the gram negative bacteria is released into your bloodstream. But what's not mentioned is the LPS is dead. LPs are dead endotoxins fragments fragments of the bacteria. So what happens is when it gets out of your intestines and goes into your bloodstream, our body detects it, which is meant to and does a low level inflammation, create the white blood cells goes to these dead LPS attacks it and gets rid of it flushes it out, that's what the white blood cells, so it's low grade inflammation, when that's gone, it's gone. That's the end of that. And just to know that low grade inflammation is actually not harmful for your body or your dog's body. It's actually the way your body works every day, our bodies actually do that to get rid of any toxins in our body. So I think the fact that it was really hyped up to be something that causes it, and extremely dangerous was the angle that the article was going to towards. So the inflammation is a temporary action. And it's actually what teaches babies and puppies to have a healthier immune system. What people don't understand is Mother's Milk is has a high level of medium chain fatty acids found in colostrum. Yes, lauric acids. And so what happens is when babies or puppies drink mother's milk, it has high levels of lauric acid, it does the same thing. It's antibacterial. You know, when puppies and babies drink mother's milk, it prevents them from getting sick, which is why they say Oh, it's good to keep on the mother's milk, the first year of their life or for puppies that went on went up to when they're being weaned, it prevents them from getting sick, because they have that antibacterial function in the milk. It will kill you know, any bacteria or any invading bacteria, and infection. And there's a very low level immune response, and it trains the puppy or human babies to have a stronger immune system. So inflammation in itself is not a bad thing. It's actually a good thing, because it helps your immune system get stronger. How to Learn About Studies Right? That makes sense when you put it like that. So when this article came out, you know, they said there are studies, were those studies really on point or were they even on virgin coconut oil, like what you guys are recommending? That's a really, really good question. I'm glad you brought that up, because a lot of negative studies that talk negatively about coconut oil, if you look at the study carefully, a lot of them are using refined or hydrogenated coconut oil. Some of them are even mixed with beef tallow or other long chain fats. So they do that a lot just to do the diets in dogs. So that's, you know, one of the things that people don't realize they say coconut oil, they use that term so loosely and broadly. The other thing is the source of the study. Every time a study comes out, you have to look at who's funding it. You know this. It’s just science. And the study actually came out from a company that was promoting probiotics for animals, which obviously would help, you know, build their case for leaky gut, leaky gut. Exactly, which is why they said, Oh, it causes leaky gut and you know, and anything I feel like within the past couple of years, anything with the word coconut oil in it, and the article, whether it's good or bad, seems to have a high attraction towards, you know, searching, clickbait, that type of thing. That this article that you're mentioning, they also said a lot of negative things about lauric acid, and saturated fat in general. So I feel like they and they were promoting the idea that lauric acid is actually bad for you. So aside from the inflammatory response, they were saying lauric acid is very bad for you. It's a saturated fat, which again, is not accurate or long chain. They said it was a long chain saturated fat, but lauric acid is a medium chain saturated fat and not a long chain. This article actually stated that it was not a medium chain fat, which is not true. I mean, it not only are there studies that show that metabolically. Lauric acid behaves like a medium chain fat when it's metabolized. But if you look at chemistry databases, like ChemSpider, those type of chemistry oil databases, or the American Oil Chemistry Association, they classify lauric acid as a medium medium chain fatty acid so there is no I don't know there's really no question no question that it's a Yeah, but this article again said that it was a long chain fat so that was inaccurate. Difference Between MCTs and LCTs Well, to better prepare us for this information, can you dive into what is the difference between an MCT or medium chain triglyceride, as well as the long chain triglycerides, what is the difference in the fat itself? All fats are classified as their their chains of carbon atoms. So all fats are made out of carbon atoms, the longer the chain of carbon atoms, it's called a long chain fat, and the shorter the easier is to be metabolized. So long chain fats are 8-14 carbon atoms and higher up to 24. Whereas medium chain fats are 12 carbon atoms and lower and the reason why it's important is the body metabolizes these fats differently. So coconut oil is a medium chain fat. And all Coconut oil contains different fatty acids. Fatty acids are basically fat molecules. And there's different kinds of fatty acids. So lauric acid is one of them caprylic acid, these are all fatty acids, and they all have a different length of carbon atoms. So lauric acid is 12 carbon atoms capric is 10. Caprylic is eight carbon atoms. So which is why Capric and Caprylic products are broken down very rapidly by the by your liver and lauric acid a little bit longer, just because it's just a bigger molecule. So that's when they say medium chain fats, it's basically a shorter chain, a smaller molecule of fat. Is that true? The MCT s are easier? Yeah, much easier. So that's a difference. And it's not just easier to digest, it has a different metabolic pathway of how it's digested. All long chain fats need bile acids to be broken down. So the bile acids will emulsify the triglycerides. And then you need pancreatic lipase to break down it to into an individual medium chain fatty acids. Then it goes through the intestinal wall and it's carried by Kailo microns through the lymphatic system and it goes to the you know to different organs and parts of the body like adipose fat tissues, those are long chain fats. medium chain fats don't go through that it doesn't need bile for emulsification. It doesn't need pancreatic lipase to break down it goes straight through the portal vein and to the liver and it's broken down and as energy, ketones, that sort of thing, which is why medium chain fats are outstanding for even people who need to be in a low fat diets or animals or people with pancreatitis or any lipid disorders such as lymphatic ectasia. PLE. So any animal or people that cannot tolerate fats? medium chain fat is tolerable for them because they don't need the Pancreatic lipase or the bile enzymes. So make sense? Yeah, okay, so just to reiterate, people if your dog has pancreatitis, or has had it in the past, coconut oil is a good oil to give your dog you should not feel that oh my dog isn't a candidate because of the pancreatitis. And this makes sense. I didn't know that it bypasses the pancreas. Fascinating. And it goes for all, you know, there's a lot of dogs that need to be on low fat diets for whatever reason, right? So, but fat is an important macronutrient that animals need for energy, you cannot be without fat for that. So you have to substitute it with a fat that's healthy and that can be metabolized differently, which is why medium chain fats or medium chain MCTs are one of medically looked at as one of the healthiest and safest fats to give any person or dog with lipid disorders. Okay, well, we are going to take a quick sponsor break. So ladies, if you'll hold on, we will be right back. Thanks to our friends at AnimalBiome for sponsoring today's episode. They are brilliant at applying science to improve your dog’s health. Did you know that 60-70% of your dog’s immune cells are located in the gut microbiome? And when their microbiome is out of balance, it can lead to inflammation associated with GI and skin issues. My dog Winston was tested and the results were shocking! He had way too many harmful bacteria and too few strains of the beneficial bacteria. No wonder his immune system was always compromised! Thanks to the AnimalBiome team for getting him back on track so that he can live a much healthier life! Isn’t it time to test your dog’s gut health? Learn more by going to https://animalbiome.com/home and be sure to use the discount code WOL-20 for 20% off! Coconut Oil as Carrier Oil for CBD Welcome back everybody. Charisa and Carmina are here to talk to us about coconut oil and how it is beneficial for our dogs and ourselves. And this has been a little science class almost which I don't know if anybody listening has taken canine nutrition, but it is going back to school chemistry, biology there’s a lot to it. And I think we need to remind ourselves that dogs do not need carbohydrates to live. They thrive on proteins and fats as we're talking about right now. So ladies, I have heard you know, the CBD industry is huge. And everybody is jumping on this bandwagon. And some people have said, Oh, we can't use coconut oil as the carrier oil for CBD because it causes inflammation. What do you say to that? I think that's the most unfortunate fallacy I've ever heard. Because coconut oil is actually the best carrier oil for CBD because it's been shown to cross the blood brain barrier. There's actually studies in Japan that have shown that lauric acid itself, if it's not metabolized by the liver into ketones, it will cross the blood brain barrier and the brain will convert it to ketones. Brain ketones, which is different. So to use CBD with coconut oil, it's outstanding because you can bring that CBD straight to the brain. And the funny thing is to say that it's inflammatory is actually quite hilarious because coconut oil is the most anti inflammatory fat there is because coconut oil is a saturated fat, right? It's saturated with hydrogen atoms. Therefore it is stronger than a poly unsaturated fat or mono unsaturated fat. I've seen a lot of CBD that uses olive oil, for example, as a carrier, which is actually mono unsaturated. Yes, and it oxidizes quite rapidly compared to coconut oil. So that would be even more pro inflammatory than coconut oil. Cholesterol and Coconut Oil That's a great point. Well, since we're talking about fats, how is coconut oil when it comes to cholesterol? Because some people that is one of the myths, Oh, can't give it to myself for my dog because it's going to clog our arteries. In terms of dietary cholesterol, cholesterol is the lowest collected zero to 14 PPM as they call it parts per million. So if it's zero or less than 14, coconut oil, it hardly has it's a cholesterol free food. So coconut oil compared to say butter, it has a lot of cholesterol has very little cholesterol. And if you if you eat coconut oil, it actually improves your overall cholesterol level. The ratio overall cholesterol with the HDL, so it actually improves your HDL cholesterol levels and there's many studies that prove that yeah, so you don't have to worry about cholesterol increasing on their cholesterol levels from oil coconut oil increased. Yeah, well actually coconut oil actually helps increase levels of HDL to which you want higher HDL compared to the LDL, which is the harmful cholesterol. And you know, quite contrary to popular belief, when you consume fat, it, it doesn't really provide that cholesterol in your body. A lot of you know, people think that if you eat cholesterol, that's what gives you cholesterol, but your liver actually creates the cholesterol. So the way it's metabolized, actually, is what makes a huge difference. One of the metabolites, what people have found that dietary cholesterol, you know, remember, I don't know if you've heard of studies, so eggs are very high cholesterol, shrimp, etc. So if you have a high cholesterol, they say, oh, eat a low cholesterol diet, no eggs for, you no shrimp, anything that has high cholesterol. But what the latest studies and is, I think widely accepted knowledge is for dietary cholesterol that you eat, and you know that only 1/10 of the cholesterol in that diet is actually used by your body. So it doesn't even impact the cholesterol in your levels. But in your body, what impacts it is your liver making cholesterol. So that's it's hereditary. Exactly. But But again, but see, this is what people don't know about animals. So that's what we just you know what we talked about pertains to human beings, but animals, cats and dogs, mainly, they naturally have a higher HDL level than people. So animals by design, biologically, they can process a lot more fat than people, they actually eat a highly saturated fat diet, and they can handle it way better than people can just because of their naturally higher HDL levels in their body. I don't know if you've heard about the study. I can't remember the name of the doctor that came up with this study where he allowed wild animals and dogs to forage on food that they provided. And that what they realized, raw food/raw fat… and they found out that the wolves, they did it with wolves and the dogs, they would gorge on fat first and be full, you know, filled with a fat and then he would do protein next and then the entrails which would contain some of the carbs. So they would eat an extremely high amount of fat and without any risk of heart disease or arthrosclerosis, or any of that type of disease. Even More Benefits of Coconut Oil And that was self selection. That makes a lot of sense. All right, everybody, we just busted some myths. Coconut oil does not cause pancreatitis. It is not inflammatory. It is. Yes, it's an antibacterial, but it's not going to kill the good bacteria in your gut or your dog's gut. And then we just talked about how coconut oil is not high in cholesterol. So ladies, let's go down the list of all the benefits of feeding our dogs, coconut oil. Coconut oil is again a macronutrient that it doesn't it may not supplying vitamins and minerals, but it is a macronutrient that does supply the healthy beneficial fats. So it helps your body boost the immune system. The way we explained it earlier. It actually protects antiviral, antifungal, antimicrobial, so it helps detox an animal's body. It helps with inflammation and helps to heal the gut and then the mucosal lining. And to bring it down to level we get a lot of letters on a daily basis. And we just got one today actually a little chihuahua, where it helps with allergies. And there's just so many reasons for allergies. And it could probably a lot of it is because of an overactive immune system. So coconut oil helps modulate an overactive immune system, which is why it helps with allergies. caprylic acid is known to kill yeast. So if the dog has systemic yeast issues, just feeding coconut oil helps with the systemic yeast issues. You can also use it to clean the ears like topically. It's also great for dogs and again, I cannot. I mean there's so many studies both with animals and people how it helps with seizures, tons of studies with Alzheimer's, you know, dementia, because frankly, the ketones in the brain as well feeds the brain that help gives energy to your brain cells. Exactly. So there's so many studies that help that provide…in fact, a lot of the people that buy our MCT oil, which is strictly has a higher level of Caprylic and capric acid a little bit lower lauric acid, it is really helping the dog mitigate the seizures. It's also great for animals with cancer just because it's anti inflammatory as well. Oh my gosh. And when you talk about topical treatments, I know wounds and cuts. Some people say it repels mosquitoes and fleas. Have you guys heard that as well? Yeah, we've heard that and the Philippines and we were kids. We would play outside we would get head lice. My grandmother used to put coconut oil in our hair and just just rub it in our scalp. None of those nasty lice killers that you get are poisonous. Yeah, it's basically just coconut oil in our hair and scalp and it kills them. So we've heard a lot of customers that would say that when their dog would get flea infestations. Dogs and basically smother the fleas. That's really Yeah, helpful. You can rub it on their paws and their noses for Cracked dry skin and wounds. It's basically a first aid kit in a jar. Exactly. Well, speaking of in the jar, of course, and this is for everybody that's seeing this on video, I have the Coco Therapy, virgin coconut oil that I use to brush Winston's teeth, because it is anti microbial. And he loves it. I mean, he he's standing there waiting for that jar to be open and it tastes great. So why not? And you know, one of the world's perfect proteins is eggs. So if you don't give your dog raw eggs, you can always do you know, a little scrambled eggs in coconut oil. And oh my gosh, your dog will thank you for that. You're lucky dog. He's very lucky. So we just went through some of the benefits. There are a lot of benefits and Coco Therapy. I just have some of the products here. For those again on video. I mean, it makes me hungry, and I should probably try one of these. You've got Maggie's macaroons, and just plain old coconut chips. Delicious. The pina colada, coconut and pineapple. I mean, what dogs don't and cats. I'm sure don't go crazy for this. So I would love for you guys to share. How do people find out more about the Cocoa Therapy products? Where do they go and learn more about the facts about coconut oil and your actual products and how they're made. They can go to our website, cocoa therapy.com. And we have a blog section. If they click on blogs, and they can read we publish about two blogs a month, every other week. And we talk about everything from the benefits the science, ketogenic diets, so they can learn up and metabolic endotoxemia. So they can learn more about coconut coconut oil differences. So that's the best way to learn. I think it's via our blogs. Yeah, I think you sign up for the newsletters too get like our newsletters that we send out. Website: www.CocoTherapy.com Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CocoTherapy Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cocotherapy/ Oh, those are great. Yes. Okay, perfect. Well, hopefully, we have piqued everybody's interest that Coco Therapy is you guys are the experts on coconut oil. And you've given us a lot to think about that it's not scary that it is actually beneficial. What would you like to leave us with today? I think that people should try it. Because a lot of veterinarians actually recommend it is actually very safe. It's great to use topically and orally, we recommend that people rotate it with fish oil as well just just, you know, to have an overall more variety in their diet, and just basically not to be afraid of it. Yeah, I think knowledge knowledge is the more you know, the less fear you'll have. So basically just learn more about it. Yeah. And Krista just really quick. My dog is actually on a Ketogenic style diet where she has a higher fat content and lower carbs. And this is just how she eats on a normal basis. So and she's very Yeah, yeah, she gets about 69% fat in her diet, and about 30% protein. And doing amazing, I'm sure Doing fantastic. Well, ladies, thank you for setting us straight. I want to just tell you how much I appreciate you being on. I know it's been a while since we chatted. But you know, we're not the only ones in the world that say coconut oil is amazing. Don't believe everything that you read. And if you are looking at a study, really dissect it, you know, what are they looking at? What are they using, and you guys have to educate yourselves again to be the best advocate for your dog. So, ladies, thank you for being here today. I'm going to put all of your links in the show notes as well. And we'd love to have you back on. Thanks for having Thanks, Krista. Thanks so much for having us. Thanks again to the team at AnimalBiome for sponsoring this episode. Learn more by going to animalbiome.com and be sure to use the discount code WOL-20 for 20% off. Your dog will thank you! Thanks for listening. 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