Coconut oil is a
saturated fat and was drilled into our minds as deadly, but is it really so?
and saturated fats are they really bad? well recent researches prove that it is
not the saturated fat that is the real culprit. the real problem is the trans
fat found in all refined oils including refined coconut oil.
pure Coconut oil contains medium chain
fatty acids which bypasses the carnitine system and goes directly to the liver
to be metabolized into energy. It increases thermogenesis and metabolism
and reduces body weight. Virgin coconut oil also reduces LDL (bad
cholesterol) and is the only oil in the planet that can increase HDL (good
cholesterol).
That” saturated
fats are bad fats and can cause heart disease “needs to be seriously
reconsidered.
The diet heart hypothesis is also at stake as
agreed by Framingham Heart Study Co-Director, Dr George Mann where he says "the diet heart hypothesis has been
repeatedly shown to be wrong and yet for complicated reasons of pride and
prejudice, the hypothesis continuues to be exploited by scientists,
fund-raising enterprises, food companies and even governmental agencies.”The
public is being deceived by te greatest health scam of the century".
And according to
Dr Willium Castelli the director of Framingham study " In Framingham
studies,the more saturated fat one ate, the more cholesterol one ate, the more
calories one ate, the lower people''s serum cholesterol.. we found that the
people who ate most cholesterol,ate the most saturated fat,ate the most calories
weighed the least and were the most physically active."
It is now proven that coconut oil even
destroys the Cytomegalovirus and Chlamydia pneumonia which is one of the
responsible factors for initiating atherosclerosis. Our ancestors of south East
Asia were all healthy when they consumed coconut products abundantly. A study
conducted in Safdarjung, New Delhi (1998)[choice of cooking myths &
realities] showed that the incidents of cancer, diabetes and heart disease
arose when Indians stopped using traditional oils like coconut oil and mustard
oil and started consuming the so called ''heart friendly'' cooking oils, which is
full of trans fat, the culprit that causes all these diseases, obtained from
hydrogenating and heating oils.
one of the healthiest oil is virgin coconut
oil.
numerous researched have been done with VCO.
Beneficial
effects of virgin coconut oil on lipid parameters and in vitro LDL oxidation. by Nevin KG,
Rajamohan T.
Department of
Biochemistry, University of Kerala, Kariavattom, Thiruvananthapuram 695 581,
India..where they found It reduced total cholesterol, triglycerides,
phospholipids, LDL, and VLDL cholesterol levels and increased HDL cholesterol
in serum and tissues. The PF of virgin coconut oil was also found to be capable
of preventing in vitro LDL oxidation with reduced carbonyl formation.
CONCLUSION: The results demonstrated the potential beneficiary effect of virgin
coconut oil in lowering lipid levels in serum and tissues and LDL oxidation by
physiological oxidants. This property of VCO may be attributed to the
biologically active polyphenol components present in the oil.According to Dr
Mary Enig a renowed lipid biochemist,( who has done more than 20 years of
research on fats) says, the problems for coconut oil started four decades ago when
researchers fed animals hydrogenated coconut oil that was purposely altered to
make it completely devoid of any essential fatty acids... The animals fed the
hydrogenated coconut oil (as the only fat source) naturally became essential
fatty acid deficient; their serum cholesterol increased. Diets that cause an
essential fatty acid deficiency always produce an increase in serum cholesterol
levels as well as in increase in the atherosclerotic indices. The same effect
has also been seen when other ...highly hydrogenated oils such as cottonseesoybean or corn oils have been fed; so it is clearly a function of the
hydrogenated products, either because the oil is essential fatty acid (EFA)
deficient or because of transfatty acids."
What about studies where animals were fed
unprocessed coconut oil? Enig wrote: "Hostmark et al (1980) compared the
effects of diets containing 10% coconut oil and 10% sunflower oil on
lipoprotein distribution in male Wistar rats.
Coconut oil feeding produced significantly
lower levels (p=0.05) of pre-beta lipoproteins (VLDL) and significantly
higher (p=<0.01) alpha-lipoproteins (HDL) relative to sunflower
feeding." (Editor''s note: HDLs are considered the good cholesterol as they
prevent deposits of LDL cholesterol on artery walls.) She also cited a study by
Awad (1981) on Wistar rats fed a diet of either 14% (natural) coconut oil or
14% safflower oil. She stated:"Total tissue cholesterol accumulation for
animals on the safflower diet was six times greater than for animals fed
the [unhydrogenated] coconut oil. A conclusion that can be drawn from some of
the animal research is that feeding hydrogenated coconut oil devoid of
essential fatty acids (EFA) ...potentate the formation of atherosclerosis
markers. It is of note that animals fed regular coconut oil have less
cholesterol deposited in their livers and other parts of their bodies."
Enig also referred to epidemiological studies done by Kaunitz and Dayrit (1992)
on coconut eating societies who found that "available population studies show
that dietary pure coconut oil does not lead to high serum cholesterol nor to
high coronary heart disease.." It is noteworthy that hydrogenated
coconut oil was not consumed by these coconut eating societies; they only
consumed natural coconut oil. her final conclusion was "everything the
public has been told about vegetable oils on television for the past 15 years
has been half truths and leading the public to the wrong conclusions. The
public has been led to believe that tropicals will clog your arteries and cause
heart disease. In fact, the opposite is true; natural tropical oils will help
prevent hardening of the arteries while most liquid vegetable oils will
increase hardening of the arteries!"
As a practising Doctor in Oman for almost two decades, I find what the above researchers say
is 100% correct in my experience with my patients, All my patients who avoid
the refined oils and who switch on to virgin coconut oil, and olive oil ( olive
oil is not to be cooked, for it is oxidized by light & heat.). and those
who take a lot of fish and meat ( grilled not fried) are much healthier than
those who use the so called " heart friendly" refined oils and
consumed fried fish and meat. Virgin coconut oil can be safely used for cooking
because it is
nearly a completely saturated fat, which means it is much less susceptible to
damage when it is heated, and the heat labile point of VCO is also very high.
So I feel it is
time for us to re evaluate our present knowledge and brain washed notion on
saturated fats and cholesterol, and bring back into our patients their
traditional eating habits which has been passed down from generation to
generation and lead them to good health.
As Doctor
RusselL.Smith Phd (Author of authoritive study on CHD) has righty pointed out
that "the relevant literature [on CHD] is permeated with fraudulent
material that is designed to convert negative evidence into positive evidence
with respect to lipid hypothesisi. that fraud is relatively easy to
detect."
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