Can The Skin Absorb Nutrients From Coconut Oil

May 2, 2017 — Updated January 4th, 2019

A common question that I get goes something like this, "I understand that eating found oils may not be the best thing for my health, is using oil on the skin, i.eastward. for massage potentially harmful too?" The short respond is no, it is not. In adults, oils applied to the skin mostly do not penetrate beyond outermost layer of the pare^[ane] and do not go into the apportionment. Thus, the fats do not get into the circulation in any way that could be considered "diet".

Of course the answer is more complicated than that. Your skin is the largest and fastest growing organ of your torso. And while there is a wonderful, beautiful layer of dead cells at the outermost part of your pare, the pare is not impermeable. Certain chemicals, including oils, medicines, and toxins can pass through your skin and be absorbed. These do not atomic number 82 to "nutritionally" equivalent levels of assimilation, though, at least as far as fat goes. In other words, rubbing oil on your pare is not the aforementioned as eating a high fat nutrition. In fact, skin absorption is inefficient plenty that I don't suggest patients worry about this assimilation, at least from a nutritional betoken of view.

To further investigate this question, I wrote to Maxim Darvin, PhD, of the Centre of Experimental and Applied Cutaneous Physiology in the department of dermatology at Charite-Universitaetsmedizin in Berlin, who has performed key research looking at depth of absorption of oil applied to pare. He writes, "In our recent in vivo studies on human forearm skin, we accept shown that both mineral and vegetable oils do non permeate through the stratum corneum (typical thickness on the forearm is 20 µm) and saturate the superficial layers but (max. ten µm)." In other words, he writes, "I personally remember that transcutaneous diet of oils through healthy skin is a fiction."

Premature infants may be a different story. Their skin is extremely thin, and massage with oil actually has been shown to result in greater weight gain compared to massage without oil, implying a significant nutritional contribution from the topical oil^[2].

Even in adults, there clearly are topical substances that cross the skin barrier. For example, medications applied to the peel can be absorbed systemically, and oils or other solvents can help facilitate their absorption. If you are putting prescription medication on your pare, some of that medication is beingness absorbed into your circulation, though in many cases it is a less efficient method of systemic drug delivery than consuming a drug orally. Steroids in a steroid foam used for a rash, for example, are captivated systemically, only corporeality to far less exposure (depending on medicine and formulation) than if y'all were to take a steroid pill orally. Sometimes peel absorption is really a more effective grade of drug delivery than oral consumption, because you can featherbed liver metabolism by getting a drug in through the skin. Nicotine patches and fentanyl patches are examples of systemic drugs delivered via the skin.

And some oils, like medications, do take components that permeate the skin to some degree. Examples of this include tea tree and lavender oils. These in particular accept been shown to have furnishings on hormone systems^[iii]. There have been cases of pre-pubertal boys using products with lavender and tea tree oil topically and they had lower levels of sex activity steroids in their claret and breast enlargement, which resolved with discontinuation of the essential oil-containing products^[3].

Some oils are likely to be more helpful or harmful than others. Coconut oil, for example, has been shown to take antibacterial, antifungal, and moisturizing properties. I've had several patients utilize coconut oil to treat pocket-sized pare bug to good effect. When it is all said and done, using oil on your skin is a process far removed from eating information technology and at that place's no reason at all to worry virtually enjoying a dainty massage.

References

Choe C, Lademann J, Darvin ME. Assay of Human and Porcine Skin in vivo/ex vivo for Penetration of Selected Oils by Confocal Raman Microscopy. Skin Pharmacol Physiol 2015;28:318-30.
Jabraeile Thou, Rasooly AS, Farshi MR, Malakouti J. Upshot of olive oil massage on weight gain in preterm infants: A randomized controlled clinical trial. Niger Med J 2016;57:160-three.
Henley DV, Korach KS. Physiological effects and mechanisms of action of endocrine disrupting chemicals that modify estrogen signaling. Hormones (Athens) 2010;ix:191-205.

Source: https://nutritionstudies.org/i-avoid-eating-oil-but-is-it-a-healthy-skin-care-product/

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