New year, coconuts and lauric acid

Dear Colleagues,

This Friday we will start a new year and the honor of being the first place in the world to start 2022 will be for the island of Kiritimati ( Christmas Island ) which belongs to the Republic of Kiribati, a country in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

This country has been famous in the past for coconuts and in fact they are still very important for its economy.

Coconut oil is a type of oil very rich in lauric acid or dodecanoic acid, a medium chain saturated fatty acid with 12 carbons that represents almost 50% of its composition.

Lauric acid is a type of fatty acid that either transformed into Monolaurins once consumed or supplied directly as a Monoglyceride has shown interesting antimicrobial effects against enveloped viruses, Gram-negative bacteria, or certain Protozoa.

Below I show one of the several articles related to the antimicrobial properties of this lipid against different types of Bacteria.

The team of NBG will wish you a prosperous and Happy New Year !