Coconut Oil and Horses

[Doc-t]

Can you describe what “reacted badly” means?

In humans, adding coconut oil can be tricky. As I type this, I have caprylic acid in my coffee. This is an 8-carbon length fatty acid that comes from coconut oil. The brand is Bulletproof “Brain Octane.” Here is what is behind this.

Coconut is basically a non-inflammatory fruit oil like avocado and olive. It is good to avoid seed oils like corn, vegetable, canola, etc. With coconut oil, there are a few different lengths of fatty acids and some of them can be less effective in creating ketones. By the way, this is why I add caprylic acid to my coffee (plus butter). These add ketones immediately without adding any insulin which provides enormous energy. Ketones are also known as the “fourth fuel.” Maybe this would be a good podcast!

There is a downside to adding coconut oil to human food. It will cause diarrhea. Adding it must be done slowly over time. Start with a teaspoon and slowly work your way up from there. I suspect that in horses, adding a good dose from the start caused digestive upsets.

There is a product for horses called “CocoSoy” oil which a lot of people use. Soybean oil is a seed oil and is inflammatory. It is removed in the process of making soybean meal. Further, why are people adding any oil to the food of horses? The common answer is to help the hair coat shine. We humans used to grease our hair back in the 1950s but the secret to shiny hair is (you guessed it), to stop feeding inflammatory ingredients and add high-quality protein (soybean meal). We must remember that horses are NOT humans! They are hindgut fermenting and thus can digest cellulose effectively into all the fatty acids they need.

I hope this answered your question. Please come back and describe what “reacted badly” means because if it wasn’t digestive upset, I will need to dig into this further.

[Chaela]

Doc T,

Thanks so much for your speedy reply.

The rescue ranch owner said: “(After being fed coconut oil) all three horses got super uncontrollably itchy and one got very bad hives, he is still battling one week later and he is oozing in several spots. He had some small bald patches to begin with but they were resolving. Sweet itch got worse, old skin problems erupted and melanoma patches got swollen and bigger. Over night really.” After stopping the coconut oil, “One seems better and the other two are teetering back to normal. One did loose lots of hair and melanoma patches got about 5 times bigger and many welts, seem to be getting less itchy.”

So she linked the sweet itch with the coconut oil dosing since it came on immediately following ingestion.

What do you think? Might the itch be connected to the oil?

 

Thanks much,

Chaela

[Doc-t]

Inflammation can show in different ways. The skin is the largest organ and is also the most common site for showing the effects of inflammation. Sweet itch is an excellent example of this.

I guess that the coconut oil she gave to her horses was of poor quality with “other things” in it. Pure coconut oil should not cause a skin reaction.

The dose for a human is 1 TEASPOON to start with. Five teaspoons might be a good starting point if a horse is five times our weight. I would guess that the amount of the coconut oil in question given to these horses was more – just a guess because most supplements for horses are used in more significant amounts.

Remember I said I take 2 TABLESPOONS of 8 carbon length coconut oil (caprylic acid). If math is used to extrapolate the dose, this will be 10 Tbs for a 1000-pound horse. Based on science, the reactions a horse would have or the amount needed are unknown. Getting this fractionated medium-chain triglyceride (MCT) oil for horses would also be expensive.

[Chaela]

Thank you, Doc T!