The Advantage of Coconut Oil

More recent studies, including those by Dr. George Blackburn and Vigen Babyan at Harvard Medical School, show that coconut oil benefits, when consumed as part of a varied diet, has little effect on blood cholesterol.
Such findings also shed light on the previously unexplained low incidence of high blood cholesterol and heart disease in populations where coconut oil is the main source of calories. This research also has demonstrated that the particular fats in coconut oil have unique qualities....

Called medium-chain triglycerides, these fats are easier to digest and metabolize than other fats. Although they are saturated fats, the medium-chain triglycerides in coconut oil tend to be burned as a fuel rather than loaded into low-density lipoproteins (which are associated with "bad" cholesterol) and dumped into the bloodstream. The scientific community was rethinking its opinions about the negative effects of coconut oil a couple of years ago when a national advertising campaign took on coconut oil. Self-appointed health crusader Phil Sokolof took out full-page ads in large metropolitan newspapers attacking the presence of "tropical oils" such as coconut oil in the American food supply.

Sokolof, a wealthy, recovered heart-attack victim, said that saturated fats and cholesterol were "poisoning" America. The negative publicity led many major food processors to replace coconut oil in existing products, and decreased the likelihood that the oil would be used in new product lines. To make their products more attractive to health-conscious consumers, food companies started putting statements such as "Contains No Tropical Oils" on product labels. It is ironic that the coconut oil replacements are, very often, polyunsaturated vegetable oils such as soy, corn and cottonseed, which must be partially or fully hydrogenated (solidified) to be effective. These hydrogenated replacements contain as much saturated fat as coconut oil, but they are not made from the easily digested medium-chain triglycerides.

In addition, the replacement fats include byproducts of the hydrogenation process called trans-fatty acids, which themselves have been found to raise blood cholesterol. Are these alternatives to coconut oil actually healthier choices?

Not likely. In upcoming months, it's likely we'll be seeing a change in the statements about the effects of the different saturated fats in the diet. Meanwhile, a good first step would be to stop thinking of saturated fats as one homogeneous group.

While it's doubtful any new information will recommend that you increase the level of fat in your diet, it's possible that coconut oil will again be considered a reasonable part of a healthy, balanced diet. Blonz is a nutritional scientist based in Berkeley.