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Tsunami Victims Survive on Coconuts

The evidence for the health-giving and disease-fighting properties of coconuts and coconut oil are well documented at the www.coconutoil.com research website, and now these life-giving properties of  coconut oil are currently being seen in “miraculous” survival stories coming out of Asia. Consider some of the following stories from the media which are representative:

From the Associate Press, January 22, 2005

Tsunami Survivor Discovered After 25 Days

PORT BLAIR, India — Waving a flag made of his clothes, a tsunami victim dressed only in his underwear was rescued after surviving alone for 25 days on a flattened island in India's Andaman and Nicobar archipelago, authorities said Saturday.

The tale of survival reached Port Blair, the capital and the region's only city, on Saturday as authorities slowly established normal communication links with faraway islands.

A total of 1,899 people were declared dead across the Andaman and Nicobar islands following the Dec. 26 tsunami, and at least 5,553 remain missing.

Hope has run out for the untraced people. But on Saturday, officials on Campbell Bay island reported that a Nicobarese man named Michael Mangal had been spotted on deserted Pillow Panja island on Jan. 19, wearing underwear and waving a cloth made from the rest of his clothes.

Mangal was sucked into the sea when the first tsunami wave retreated, but an even bigger second wave dumped him back on the shore. However, he found that no one else had survived from his village, a local government statement said.

Injured and desperate, he survived for the next 25 days only on coconuts before being rescued, it said.

Refugees walk Aceh's road of horror

Sat Jan 1, 2005 02:01 PM GMT

"At night I try to sleep in the hills among the trees, but I can't, I always think of the corpses."

Tsunami survivor Ramli Ali

By Tomi Soetjipto

LEUPUNG, Indonesia (Reuters) - Exhausted and frightened, Ramli Ali has walked for six days, living off coconuts as he tries to reach the tsunami-battered Indonesian city of Banda Aceh.The lack of food and sleep don't bother him as much as what he sees every day along this coastal strip, which bore the brunt of last Sunday's massive waves that killed more than 80,000 people and crushed virtually everything in its path.

"It's the corpses. I'm afraid of the corpses, especially at night," said Ali, a former hospital worker in the town of Calang. "At night I try to sleep in the hills among the trees, but I can't, I always think of the corpses."

Wearing a T-shirt around his mouth, Ali, 30, said he had seen bodies everywhere as he trudged along what remains of the road leading south from Banda Aceh to Calang, 150 km (94 miles) south of the provincial capital.

The waves devastated Calang, said Ali, who was walking with five other refugees. He said he survived by running to the nearby mountains when word of the waves spread. Ali said he had seen nothing but a brutal scene of destruction. There was virtually no sign of life, he said, just hundreds of dead. Television pictures have shown whole villages obliterated by the waves.

Reuters reporters spoke to Ali near Leupung, a once thriving fishing district barely 40 km (25 miles) southwest of Banda Aceh. No aid has reached the area. The only way to get there by land is on motorbikes and on foot, a punishing journey of three hours, navigating steep muddy roads along hillsides and the battered shoreline.

Dozens of bloated bodies float along the now tranquil shore, wedged among fallen coconut trees or mangled cars.The force of the earthquake or the waves themselves have gouged out much of the seaside road, making it impassable for cars. Ships, one a small oil tanker, lie along the route, pushed there by the killer waves.

Among the mountains of garbage along the way, shoes and colourful car toys stick out of the debris, along with hands and legs."I have seen so many bodies on the road, so very many. I'm so afraid," said

Ali, who will travel to his hometown in the North Aceh district of Tanjung Dalam from Banda Aceh. Along the road, dozens of people were travelling by foot to Banda Aceh. Like Ali, they had trudged through mud for days with little food or water.

"We just eat the coconut fruit and drink its water," said Nuraini, 42, who has been walking for six days with his adult son. But the sound of the waves only added to the eerie atmosphere of death, the odour of human bodies and dead livestock, mingled with the cool sea breeze.

Anti Bacterial Properties of Coconut

The antiviral, antibacterial, and antifungal properties of the medium chain fatty acids/triglycerides (MCTs) found in coconut oil have been known to researchers since the 1960s. Research has shown that microorganisms that are inactivated include bacteria, yeast, fungi, and enveloped viruses. Much of this research is highlighted in the writings of Dr. Mary Enig Ph.D.

Knowing about the way the MCTs in coconut oil kill microorganisms, stories such as those above with people living among rotting dead bodies for many days with nothing to eat but coconuts, should not surprise us at all. Without the coconuts, it is not likely they would have survived at all. For those agencies looking to supply food and medicines to tsunami victims, they should take note of the health benefits of coconut oil.

There is growing consensus that man-made antibiotics produced by pharmaceutical companies are over-used today, creating a whole new host of problems for modern societies. Michael Murray N.D. and Joseph Pizzorno N.D. write in their book Encyclopedia of Natural Medicine (Prima Publishing, Rocklin, CA 1998) 

There is little argument that, when used appropriately, antibiotics save lives. However, there is also little argument that antibiotics are seriously overused. While the appropriate use of antibiotics makes good medical sense, using them for such conditions as acne, recurrent bladder infections, chronic ear infections, chronic sinusitis, chronic bronchitis, and nonbacterial sore throats does not. The antibiotics rarely provide benefit, and these conditions can be effectively treated with natural measures. The widespread use and abuse of antibiotics is becoming increasingly alarming, not only because of the chronic candidiasis epidemic, but also due to the development of "superbugs" that are resistant to currently available antibiotics. According to many experts, such as the World Health Organization, we are coming dangerously close to arriving at a "postnatibitoic era," in which many infectious diseases will once again become almost impossible to treat.

Instead of relying on man-made pharmaceuticals for everything, many are now turning to natural methods to boost the body's immune system and resist harmful viruses and micro-organisms naturally. Coconut oil is truly one of nature's best "germ fighters."

Consider some of the testimonies from those in the US who are now beginning to use coconut oil:

I too have had major improvement with cold and sinus symptoms. I used to chronically get bronchitis at least 3 times a year. Already this year, I have had 2 bouts of cold symptoms, and increased the amount [of Virgin Coconut Oil] to nearly 6 tbls a day thus averting the yucky sickies. I must say that I am truly impressed with this stuff. I have also seen major improvement my complexion, i.e... blackheads and breakouts. I use it directly on my face twice a day and my skin keeps looking better and better. Cheers to Virgin Coconut Oil!!! Laurie

I have hepatitis C. I was informed some time ago that the coconut oil can be a healing agent for this potentially fatal disease. I had undergone the medical treatment with interferon with no success. I was only real sick form the interfuron treatment, lost my hair, and became severely anemic. That was about 6 years ago. In the last 4 years I began nutritional regiments noted to help/heal hepatitis c. That includes flax seed oil, milk thistle, multi vitamins, and in the last 2 years- coconut oil. My viral load was initially at 5 million- high! In the last 3 years it has gone from that to 1/20th of a million- low! My Dr. is amazed. I feel better, more energy. And most importantly I now have the belief I can watch my grand-children grow up. I believe that the coconut oil was a major ingredient that boosted this healing. It is also yummy! Gay

Lauric Acid

Lauric acid is the most predominant MCT found in coconut oil. Regarding lauric acid, Mary Enig Ph.D writes:

Lauric acid is a medium chain fatty acid, which has the additional beneficial function of being formed into monolaurin in the human or animal body. Monolaurin is the antiviral, antibacterial, and antiprotozoal monoglyceride used by the human or animal to destroy lipid-coated viruses such as HIV, herpes, cytomegalovirus, influenza, various pathogenic bacteria, including listeria monocytogenes and helicobacter pylori, and protozoa such as giardia lamblia. Some studies have also shown some antimicrobial effects of the free lauric acid. “Health and Nutritional Benefits from Coconut Oil: An Important Functional Food for the 21st Century” Presented at the AVOC Lauric Oils Symposium, Ho Chi Min City, Vietnam, 25 April 1996.

Lauric acid is also prominent in the saturated fat of human breast milk, giving vital immune building properties to a child's first stage of life. Outside of human breast milk, nature's most abundant source of lauric acid is coconut oil.

Just a testimonial. I learned about the purported benefits of coconut oil and lauric acid last summer on the internet. I began taking it because I had, as it turned out, been misdiagnosed, with Herpes 2. My father is a biochemist who taught medical school and graduate school for 35 years before retiring. So before I began taking it, I ran some literature by him. He was impressed so I have been taking it ever since. But my family hasn't. This October, I received a call from my eldest daughter who is in college. She had been diagnosed the day before (by blood tests) that she had mononucleosis. I checked to see if the virus (Epstein-Barr) was lipid enveloped, and found that it was. I got on the internet and found her some Lauricedin pills and had them overnighted to her. She received them on a Wednesday and began taking the prescribed dose daily. Nine days later, a Friday, she called to tell me she was well. Subsequent blood work the following week confirmed that she was. Her other classmates who had gotten mono and had not taken monolaurin, remained sick for weeks and some were not even well by the end of the semester. I told my dad and he was impressed again. Seems like coconut oil should be the prescribed regimen for mono. David, Attorney, Memphis TN

From 1999 - 2000 a study was done at San Lazaro hospital in Manila by Conrado S. Dayrit, MD, and the affect of coconut oil and monolaurin on the viral load of HIV patients. It was found that lauric acid did bring down the viral load of HIV patients. You can read more about this study here. Dr. Dayrit is now conducting similar studies on the SARS virus, since the coconut oil consuming Philippines population was relatively unaffected by the recent SARS outbreak in China and other countries.

My roommate has been a herpes carrier for years--not the genital herpes, but my understanding is that all cases of herpes are viral, and that is the important common denominator. Virgin Coconut Oil (VCNO) is an anti-viral and breaks down what is called the "lipid envelope" surrounding the herpes cell. She initially got herpes in her eye many years ago, and it was basically dormant for several years after getting the initial episode under control. About 20 years later, it became re-activated when she acquired another herpes infection doing post mortem care on a patient in the hospital. The patient did not have a known diagnosis of herpes, but my roommate remembers cutting her finger on a piece of metal on the bed frame while giving this care. Perhaps the virus had been dormant for years on the bed. (If that is the case, and we will never know, so much for hospital cleanliness)! This time the herpes affected her spine, and she had a long bout of it, with much pain and suffering. This one was harder to get under control, and she had a few minor flare-ups. Since beginning VCNO, she has not had so much as a cold sore. Only time will tell for sure, but so far it's looking good, and she is getting other very positive results from the oil. Debby

Many Asians are very fortunate that amid the devastation that occurred in their lives as a result of the tsunamis, that the fallen coconuts around them helped them survive those first few (and in a few cases many!) days with so much death and disease around them. Medical teams rushing into the area would be wise to include coconut oil with their boxes of medicines.

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