The Medical Advisor

Oil pulling is a misleading term since there is no actual 'pulling' action involved. “Pseudoscience” or “quackery” are some of the words critics assign to oil pulling. While it should not replace the brushing of teeth, a growing number of scientists agree that this low-cost intervention to gum diseases and promoter of overall well-being has oral health benefits.  Dating back 3,000 to 5,000 years, oil pulling comes from the Indian medical tradition of Ayurveda. It is a technique by which a certain type of oil is swished around in the mouth cavity for a certain amount of time, then the oil is spat out. Oil pulling is followed by other oral hygiene techniques such as the brushing of teeth, flossing, and scraping of the tongue. Advocates of oil pulling swear by its effectiveness. Books such as “Oil Pulling Therapy,” by naturopathic physician Bruce Fife, have been filled with the technique’s praises, including claims that it relieves “asthma, diabetes, arthritis, migraine headaches,...

Despite the fact that more than 2,000 studies 1   have been performed on coconut oil, demonstrating a wide range of benefits, it continues to be wrongfully vilified to this day, mainly because 90% of its fat content is saturated fat. However, saturated fats, and most particularly coconut oil, are an important part of the human diet. If you have bought into the media hype that saturated fats are unhealthy and will raise your risk of heart disease, it may be time to reconsider your position. Coconut products, particularly coconut oil, have been used by certain populations around the world for millennia, and in places where coconut oil is consumed as part of the standard diet, people seem to thrive. Take the Polynesian populations of Pukapuka and Tokelau, for example, whose diets tend to be high in coconut and other saturated fats and low in cholesterol and sugar. Here, researchers found that "vascular disease is uncommon in both populations...