one of the many “superfoods” of the 2000’s, coconut oil has been said to be beneficial for everything from hair health to weight loss to wound healing. while many of the claims about coconut oil have been debunked, there’s one that’s still hanging around the tiktok sphere — that eating a spoonful of coconut oil can help with
nausea
. and it has dietitians raising their eyebrows.
for amy yiu, a registered dietitian and president and founder of
libra nutrition
, the thought of eating an oil to help with nausea isn’t logical.
“coconut oil is a fatty food and usually eating fatty foods might not help or even make nausea worse,” yiu explains.
one review
of the research available found that, in general, adding fat to a meal can increase symptoms of bloating and nausea in patients with indigestion. stomach sensitivity to distension (swelling) seem to be exacerbated by the ingestion of fat.
yiu says that a better plan of action is to find the root cause of the nausea — for example, migraines, headaches, or motion sickness — and treat it accordingly. if nausea persists, altering how much and when you eat can help keep the symptoms at bay.
“specifically for nausea there are more important strategies that can help with nausea include[ing] ensuring you have small, frequent mini meals and snacks rather than large meals and long gaps between eating,” andrea holwegner, a registered dietician and ceo of
health stand nutrition consulting inc.
, explained by email. “sipping on water and liquids between meals rather than at meals, as well as choosing bland, non-spicy, non-aromatic foods, can be helpful as is consuming ginger and lemon based foods.”
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