Coconut oil as an adjunct therapy in management of hypertension: Current evidence and future perspectives

Hypertension is a chronic condition that is considered to be one of the major risk factors for cardiovascular disease worldwide. Despite the available blood pressure lowering medications, many people still resort to using adjunct therapies that can mainly come from natural products. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the current evidence on the use of coconut oil, particularly virgin coconut oil (VCO), as an adjunct therapy in hypertension management and to explore its possible physiological mechanisms.
A literature review was employed using Google Scholar, PubMed, PubMed Central (PMC), ScienceDirect, and MDPI in finding studies published between 1996 to 2025 that can potentially link the relationship between coconut oil and hypertension.
VCO may exert potential antihypertensive effects according to preclinical studies through its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, lipid-modulating mechanisms, and regulation of the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS). This is contradicted by a single and only known clinical study on stage I hypertensive patients which did not demonstrate a significant blood pressure reduction.
In conclusion, though there are various mechanisms that VCO can offer involving blood-lowering activities, current clinical validation is still insufficient to prove this claim. Further studies are still needed to prove the adjunctive potential of VCO in managing hypertension.