Long blacklisted as an ‘artery-clogging saturated fat’, coconut oil is making a big comeback as “one of the healthiest oils on earth!” Hype? MIRROR editors sift through research papers, interview doctors and search web archives to try and separate fact from fiction. Our findings so far:

The health craze to hit the country and the rest of the world is one that our lolas have known for a long time: virgin coconut oil.

Long blacklisted as an ‘artery-clogging saturated fat,’ it is now taking center stage, literally flying off the shelves of health food stores.

New books and web sites hail it for its anti-microbial, germ-fighting and weight loss properties. It is cited for its potential benefits to diabetics, sufferers of Alzheimer’s disease and hypothyroidism, heart disease, herpes as well as he mysterious SARS and AIDS, among others. Body builders and fitness buffs are looking into its potential to build mass and stretch athletic endurance.

	“Its the healthiest oil on Earth, gasps the author of fast selling book entitled The Miracles of Coconut Oil."

Marketing hype? Haven’t we had enough?

MIRROR editors sifted through research documents, searched the archives in the world wide web and interviewed doctors about the dietary fat research and virgin coconut oil.

New Filipino health advocacy

Awareness of the healing qualities of coconut oil is not new but the vigor behind the advocacy is.

Dr. Jaime Galvez-Tan, executive director of the National Institute of Health, University of the Philippines, says, doctors and scientists are getting together to push for the more widespread use of coconut oil because of its health benefits.

Two researchers have been proposed and are awaiting funding to determine the effect of virgin coconut oil on persons with tuberculosis and on premature babies. The studies seek to subject its respond curative powers to rigorous clinical trials.

Recently, a multi-sectoral group, the National Committee on Coconut Oil Research for Health, decided that for once, facts should now be made to stand in the way of unfounded accusations being made against coconut oil. Bluntly, the committee said: “Of all fats and oils, coconut oil is not only nutritious but has the most health benefits. It is the best oil in the world because of its unique properties.

The committee – consisting of doctors and scientists from the NIH, the National Academy for Science and Technology, the Department of Science and Technology, and the UP College of Medicine – made that statement in a position paper opposing the recent claim of 11 senators of the United States that “oils high in saturated fats may be almost as conducive to heart disease as partially hydrogenated oil.” It was an oblique reference to coconut oil which consists of 92 percent saturated fatty acids.

The Filipino scientists reiterated that while coconut oil is high in saturated fats, these are medium-chain saturated fatty acids containing some of the healthiest and most powerful curative elements found in nature such as lauric acid, capric acid and caprylic acid. Lauric Acid, for instance, is known to kill viruses, bacteria, fungi, and protozoa that include those that cause tuberculosis, HIV and peptic ulcer.

Coconut oil mirrors the medium-chain fatty acids and lauric acid content of human milk. That is why infant formulas are fortified with coconut oil: to protect babies from infection just as mother’s milk would. Coconut oil is also used in hospital formulas to feed the very young, the critically ill and those with digestive problems. It also makes up a vital part of the solutions fed to patients intravenously, points out Dr. Tan, adding that coconut oil does not contain the toxic trans fatty acids.

But what’s the official stand?

Despite the superlative rhetoric, neither the Department of Health nor Philippine nutrition authorities have issued clear-cut guidelines on coconut oil intake.

The Philippines’ own Recommended Dietary and Nutrition Index (RENI), revised in 2003, hues not too far away from the American guidelines and still links fats with risk of heart disease.

“The recommended intake for the Filipinos 20-30% of fats for all age groups, except for infants which is 30-40% following the FAO/WHO recommendation.

The lower limit for adults is slightly higher than the minimum of 15% set by the FAO/WHO (2002) to promote absorption of vitamin A, which has been found to be generally low in the average Filipino diet. The upper limit is the maximum intake level recommended by most dietary guidelines as a preventive measure against the risk of cardiovascular and other degenerative diseases”

The FNRI-DOST bulletin even echoes the outdated view that “Those who need to lose weight should eat less energy-dense foods, especially foods high in fat.”

“If you are at risk of heart disease, limit your intake of cholesterol, saturated fat and fatty meats."

There is no mention yet of toxic trans fats. There is no deliberate defense of coconut oil.

The Department of Health, led today by Secretary Manuel Dayrit, Jr. (the son of Dr. Dayrit mentioned earlier), also makes no categorical endorsement of the benefits of coconut oil. At most, the DOH web site reprints an article by the elder Dayrit which cites coconut oil as one of the substances being tested as a possible cure for SARS.

Most cardiologists will wait and see

Over many years, most Filipino cardiologists have told heart patients to avoid coconut oil, since it is classified as a saturated and therefore high-cholesterol inducing oil.

Dr. Marcelito Durante, head of the preventive cardiology division of the Philippines Heart Center and the past president of the Philippines Heart Association and Philippine College of Physicians (PCP), is well aware of the new studies and advocacies regarding coconut oil. The developments are exciting, he says.

“But the issue is still somewhat controversial here and abroad. Frankly, we’re still cautious about recommending it to our patients,” says Dr. Durante, chair of the weekly PCP-MIRROR Health Forum and an active leader in the Philippine Medical Association.

The Philippine Heart Center has not made a final stand on the matter and Dr. Durante says he doesn’t think they will “until we have enough evidence.”

“One or two studies is not enough. We need to see good random trials involving a good number of participants. This may take time,” he adds.

“If more clinical trials co to a good conclusion about coconut oil, we may be more confident later to advise our patients to take it. That would be good for all of us because we are a coconut producing country.

“Meanwhile, well, let’s see…”

Is saturated coconut oil bad for your health?

For over three decades, nutritionists and doctors told us to avoid animal and coconut oil because they were “saturated fats” that cause a build-up of cholesterol in our arteries. They encouraged us to switch from butter to “no cholesterol, heart-friendly” unsaturated margarine.

Turns out that shortening and margarines from unsaturated vegetable oils are in fact the worst fats on the planet! They contain toxic transfats – mutant fatty acids on that are formed when manufacturers add hydrogen to liquid vegetable oils (partial hydrogenation) to make them more solid – that clog arteries two times worse than saturated fats. Add to this fact that oil refining, heating, bleaching and deodorizing, in general, deplete fats of essential fatty acids and nutrients.

The Harvard School of Public Health in 1994 blamed the increasing use of trans fat – loaded shortening in pastries, cookies, donuts, snack foods and other processed foods as the more likely cause of the 20th century’s alarming surge in heart disease. Still, it has taken a full decade for health authorities to finally put out official guidelines on the matter; manufactures are given up to January 2006 to put trans fat content on their labels.

All this has sparked more interest in going back to natural unrefined oil, particularly “virgin” or fresh cold-pressed oil. These contain more vitamins, and antioxidant polyphenols than refined copra oil.

Since the trans fat fiasco, the Western scientific community has begun to re-evaluate the connection of dietary fats and heart disease.

	"In general, the low-fat, low-cholesterol formula as a way to lose weight and avoid heart disease and cancer is “largely out of date,” says the current Fats and Cholesterol Nutrition Source of the Harvard School of Public Health.

They have even begun to question whether cholesterol is really to blame for coronary ailments.

Today, scientists tell us that fats (sans the trans fats of course) will actually help your heart, particularly fish oil. Unsaturated fats like olive and corn oil help lower bad cholesterol and increase good cholesterol.

There is still some concern with saturated fats, which include coconut oil. The Harvard report says it raises both good and bad cholesterol. Some interpret this to mean that fat has a “neutral effect,” although the report clarifies that the net effect may still be negative. There have been new university studies in the past three years, in India and Norway, which found beneficial heart effects for coconut oil, particularly when the virgin type is used, and when other lipid parameters are considered.

But mainstream thinking is still cautious.

The 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends total fat intake of 20 to 35% of total calories. It is still recommended that most fats come from polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fatty acids, such as fish, nuts, and vegetable oils. Trans fat is to be kept “as low as possible.” It is still recommended that saturated fats, including coconut oil, be limited to 10% of total fat.

(Cholesterol from food is advised at 300 mg a day although the Harvard School earlier reported that the cholesterol you take in through food actually is a very weak link to cholesterol in the blood, which is manufactured by the body itself from various nutrients.)

The verdict is not yet in

Many studies are going that question these new guidelines. At the American Heart Association caucus on dietary fats in 2001 it was acknowledged that the new body of evidence was conflicting. Unsaturated fats still have a large pile of evidence that they have cholesterol-lowering effects, although some studies on arterial plaque in heart attack patients suggest that large concentrations of polyunsaturated fats may be the culprit. In one study, monkeys given saturated oils, including the much favored monounsaturated olive oil, fared worse than those given saturated fats. Fish oils have usually been found to be beneficial to the heart although one study out of the Netherlands found no such connection.

The latest study, published h\just November 2004 in the American Journal for Clinical (Mozaffarian, et al/ Channing Laboratory, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School), found that saturated fat actually helped women stop the progression of coronary heart disease, while carbohydrates seemed to make it worse.

Faith and common sense

“It is an article of faith that saturated fat raises LDL (bad) cholesterol and accelerates coronary artery disease, whereas unsaturated fatty acids have the opposite effect,” write lipid researchers Robert H. Knopp and Barbara M. Retzlaff on the Northwest Lipid Research Clinic from the University of Washington School of Medicine in an article reviewing the 2004 Mozaffarian study, one of the biggest studies yet to challenge the low-saturated fat, high carb dogma.

Many Experts from the Asian coconut-producing areas have always disagreed with dietary guidelines that lump coconut oil into the general classification of “saturated fats.” They believe it belongs in a special sub-category, citing that coconuts contain the highest percentage of fast burning medium-chain fatty acids (MCTs) lf percentage of anti-microbial lauric acids.

“With all the opprobrium cast against it, it bears repeating again and again that no convincing evidence has ever been presented to prove that coconut oil causes coronary heart disease in humans. On the contrary, coconut-eating people like the Polynesians and Filipinos have low-cholesterol, on the average, and very low incidence of heart disease,” declares Dr. Manuel Dayrit, professor emeritus of pharmacology and former president of the National Academy of Science and Technology.

Studies in India and Sri Lanka also point out that groups consuming traditional cooking oil like coconut oil and ghee (clarified butter) did better than those who moved on to other so-called “heart friendly” unsaturated vegetable oils.

So where does that leave us consumers?

If you are already suffering from a high build-up of plaque in your arteries, following your doctor’s advice may be prudent: Stick to a diet that can immediately lower your cholesterol deposits. There are also drug therapies to address the problem.

For the rest of us, the new findings on dietary fats, particularly coconut oil, should make us feel a little better. We can’t avoid imbibing coconut oil – healthy or not – in one way or another in our local food products but at least more and more doctors are telling us not to worry much about it. Now, that’s one notch off our urban stress levels!

But we should have to say that given the scientific community’s fat problem at his time, downing two to four teaspoons of virgin coconut oil a day is ‘an act of faith.’

Two tablespoon of virgin coconut oil (equivalent to 240 calories) is already 50% of the recommended total fat intake, according to the Philippine nutrition guidelines of limiting fats (any fats) to 30% of an average 1800-calorie a day diet.

That would leave you only two-and-a half tablespoons more for the rest of your meals. But if you subscribe to the 10% saturated fat limit (54 calories/d), whoa, you’re way past the stop light!

Many Filipinos would not have a big problem with this faith. We all have our own personal testimonials about how our lolos and lolas lived long and healthy lives on a predominantly coconut fat intake; how Bicolanos and Visayans, who really pour on the gata (oil-rich coconut cream) in almost all their dishes, live about the same if not longer than bagoong–eating Ilocanos and tocino-craving Kapampangans.

It is also good to remember that there is more to heart disease than just dietary fat intake – poor nutrition, over-eating, lack of exercise, chemicals, pollution, stress, unhappiness, and heredity are other usual suspects. You just never know what medical and nutrition researchers will come up with next.

Related Information:

· Comparison of Dietary Fats

· Fatty Acid Composition of Various Fats and Oils