I am regularly regaled with the benefits of Coconut oil (predominantly a saturated fat) but personally I am not a fan. By all means moisturise with it, use it as a mouth cleanser, rub it through hair etc, but don’t eat too much of it. The purported health benefits just don’t stack up in the research. On the other hand Olive oil (a mono-unsaturated fat) has a bucket of research showing positive health benefits including this recent report indicating that extra-virgin olive oil (EVOO) protects memory and learning ability and further, decreases the risk of brain changes commonly associated with Alzheimer's.

In other memory related news (see previous post), a 2017 randomised trial in healthy adults showed that high levels of vitamin D improved visual and non-verbal memory, resulting in higher-level cognitive function. This trial was conducted in healthy adults so the mechanism isn’t necessarily about correcting disordered function related to a disease state. However, the impact of higher doses (4000iu daily) was greater in those with lower baseline levels of vitamin D (75 nmol/L). Interestingly most Australian pathology labs indicate that a vitamin D level between 50-100 nmol/L is sufficient. On this basis a proportion of adults that have ‘normal’ levels of vitamin D may benefit from increasing their level to the high-normal range.