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A New Look at Coconut Oil – Part 3
Wednesday, March 20, 2024 11:10 AM
Article by MARY ENIG, PHD
January 2, 2000
Photo by Sharon Pittaway on unsplash.com
https://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/know-your-fats/a-new-look-at-coconut-oil/#gsc.tab=0
Health and Nutritional Benefits from Coconut Oil: An Important Functional Food for the 21st Century
Presented at the AVOC Lauric Oils Symposium, Ho Chi Min City, Vietnam, 25 April 1996
II. Origins of the Diet/Heart Hypothesis
Although popular literature of epidemiological studies usually attributes an increased risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) to elevated levels of serum cholesterol, which in turn are thought to derive from a dietary intake of saturated fats and cholesterol. But saturated fats may be considered a major culprit for CHD only if the links between serum cholesterol and CHD, and between saturated fat and serum cholesterol are each firmly established. Decades of large-scale tests and conclusions therefrom have purported to establish the first link. In fact, this relationship has reached the level of dogma. Through the years metabolic ward and animal studies have claimed that dietary saturated fats increase serum cholesterol levels, thereby supposedly establishing the second link. But the scientific basis for these relationships has now been challenged as resulting from large-scale misinterpretation and misrepresentation of the data. (Enig 1991, Mann 1991, Smith 1991, Ravnskov 1995)
Ancel Keys is largely responsible for starting the anti-saturated fat agenda in the United States. From 1953 to 1957 Keys made a series of statements regarding the atherogenicity of fats. These pronouncements were:
“All fats raise serum cholesterol; Nearly half of total fat comes from vegetable fats and oils; No difference between animal and vegetable fats in effect on CHD (1953); Type of fat makes no difference; Need to reduce margarine and shortening (1956); All fats are comparable; Saturated fats raise and polyunsaturated fats lower serum cholesterol; Hydrogenated vegetable fats are the problem; Animal fats are the problem (1957-1959).”
As can be seen, his findings were inconsistent.
What was the role of the edible oil industry in promoting the diet/heart hypothesis?
It is important to realize that at that time (1960s) the edible oil industry in the United States seized the opportunity to promote its polyunsaturates. The industry did this by developing a health issue focusing on Key’s anti-saturated fat bias. With the help of the edible oil industry lobbying in the United States, federal government dietary goals and guidelines were adopted incorporating this mistaken idea that consumption of saturated fat was causing heart disease. This anti-saturated fat issue became the agenda of government and private agencies in the US and to an extent in other parts of the world. This is the agenda that has had such a devastating effect on the coconut industry for the past decade. Throughout the 1960s, the 1970s, the 1980s, and the 1990s, the anti-saturated fat rhetoric increased in intensity.
What are some of the contradictions to the hypothesis of blaming saturated fat?
Recently, an editorial by Harvard’s Walter Willett, M.D. in the American Journal of Public Health (1990) acknowledged that even though:
“the focus of dietary recommendations is usually a reduction of saturated fat intake, no relation between saturated fat intake and risk of CHD was observed in the most informative prospective study to date.”
Another editorial, this time by Framingham’s William P. Castelli in the Archives of Internal Medicine (1992), declared for the record that:
“…in Framingham, Mass, the more saturated fat one ate, the more cholesterol one ate, the more calories one ate, the lower the person’s serum cholesterol… the opposite of what the equations provided by Hegsted at al (1965) and Keys et al (1957) would predict…”
Castelli further admitted that:
“…In Framingham, for example, we found that the people who ate the most cholesterol, ate the most saturated fat, ate the most calories, weighed the least, and were the most physically
January 2, 2000
Photo by Sharon Pittaway on unsplash.com
https://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/know-your-fats/a-new-look-at-coconut-oil/#gsc.tab=0
Health and Nutritional Benefits from Coconut Oil: An Important Functional Food for the 21st Century
Presented at the AVOC Lauric Oils Symposium, Ho Chi Min City, Vietnam, 25 April 1996
II. Origins of the Diet/Heart Hypothesis
Although popular literature of epidemiological studies usually attributes an increased risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) to elevated levels of serum cholesterol, which in turn are thought to derive from a dietary intake of saturated fats and cholesterol. But saturated fats may be considered a major culprit for CHD only if the links between serum cholesterol and CHD, and between saturated fat and serum cholesterol are each firmly established. Decades of large-scale tests and conclusions therefrom have purported to establish the first link. In fact, this relationship has reached the level of dogma. Through the years metabolic ward and animal studies have claimed that dietary saturated fats increase serum cholesterol levels, thereby supposedly establishing the second link. But the scientific basis for these relationships has now been challenged as resulting from large-scale misinterpretation and misrepresentation of the data. (Enig 1991, Mann 1991, Smith 1991, Ravnskov 1995)
Ancel Keys is largely responsible for starting the anti-saturated fat agenda in the United States. From 1953 to 1957 Keys made a series of statements regarding the atherogenicity of fats. These pronouncements were:
“All fats raise serum cholesterol; Nearly half of total fat comes from vegetable fats and oils; No difference between animal and vegetable fats in effect on CHD (1953); Type of fat makes no difference; Need to reduce margarine and shortening (1956); All fats are comparable; Saturated fats raise and polyunsaturated fats lower serum cholesterol; Hydrogenated vegetable fats are the problem; Animal fats are the problem (1957-1959).”
As can be seen, his findings were inconsistent.
What was the role of the edible oil industry in promoting the diet/heart hypothesis?
It is important to realize that at that time (1960s) the edible oil industry in the United States seized the opportunity to promote its polyunsaturates. The industry did this by developing a health issue focusing on Key’s anti-saturated fat bias. With the help of the edible oil industry lobbying in the United States, federal government dietary goals and guidelines were adopted incorporating this mistaken idea that consumption of saturated fat was causing heart disease. This anti-saturated fat issue became the agenda of government and private agencies in the US and to an extent in other parts of the world. This is the agenda that has had such a devastating effect on the coconut industry for the past decade. Throughout the 1960s, the 1970s, the 1980s, and the 1990s, the anti-saturated fat rhetoric increased in intensity.
What are some of the contradictions to the hypothesis of blaming saturated fat?
Recently, an editorial by Harvard’s Walter Willett, M.D. in the American Journal of Public Health (1990) acknowledged that even though:
“the focus of dietary recommendations is usually a reduction of saturated fat intake, no relation between saturated fat intake and risk of CHD was observed in the most informative prospective study to date.”
Another editorial, this time by Framingham’s William P. Castelli in the Archives of Internal Medicine (1992), declared for the record that:
“…in Framingham, Mass, the more saturated fat one ate, the more cholesterol one ate, the more calories one ate, the lower the person’s serum cholesterol… the opposite of what the equations provided by Hegsted at al (1965) and Keys et al (1957) would predict…”
Castelli further admitted that:
“…In Framingham, for example, we found that the people who ate the most cholesterol, ate the most saturated fat, ate the most calories, weighed the least, and were the most physically
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