The Coconut Oil Miracle (6 page)

Other conditions such as asthma, allergies, memory loss, and senility also showed a greater degree of occurrence among people who use refined polyunsaturated oils rather than saturated fats. Another problem with these polyunsaturated oils is their influence on the immune system. Our immune system is what keeps us healthy.
Polyunsaturated oils suppress the immune system, making us more vulnerable to disease and premature aging. Unsaturated fats not only suppress the immune system but can even kill white blood cells. The health of your immune system in large part determines your ability to ward off disease and remain healthy. Researchers believe that for the most part, free radicals are to blame for these conditions. When you eat conventionally processed polyunsaturated oils, the type typically sold in grocery stores, you are just shortening your life by providing a doorway for disease.

Because saturated fats have no double-carbon bonds—the weak links that are easily broken to form free radicals—they are much more stable under a variety of conditions. They can be exposed to heat, light, and oxygen without undergoing any appreciable degree of oxidation or free-radical formation. For this reason, they are preferable for use with food, especially if the food is going to be cooked or stored for any length of time. Saturated fat remains stable even when heated to normal cooking temperatures. This is why it is far superior to polyunsaturated oil for cooking purposes.

Coconut oil, being a highly saturated fat, is the least vulnerable of all the dietary oils to oxidation and free-radical formation and therefore is the safest to use in cooking. Replacing the liquid vegetable oils you are now using with coconut oil can help eliminate the many health problems caused by consuming oxidized oils. While coconut oil’s apparent harmlessness is a definite advantage, it is not the primary reason it is so good. The medium-chain fatty acids in coconut oil give it properties that make it unique and considered by many to be the healthiest oil on earth.

Trans fatty acids are created by modern technology and are foreign to the human body. Because these fats are unlike the natural fatty acids needed for good health, our bodies are incapable of utilizing them in a productive manner. It’s like pouring apple cider into the gas tank of your car—it gums up the works. Cars are designed to run on gasoline, not apple cider. The sugars in the apple juice will cause the engine to freeze up. In like manner, trans fatty acids cause our cells to freeze up, so to speak, leaving them dysfunctional. The more trans fatty acids eaten, the greater the cellular destruction, until entire tissues and organs become seriously affected. Disease is the result.

In the extraction, refining, and deodorizing process, vegetable oils are heated to temperatures up to 400 degrees F for extended periods of time. Vegetable oils are often hydrogenated to turn them into solid fats. In the process of hydrogenation, higher temperatures and longer exposure times create a far greater number of trans fatty acids. Shortening and margarine are hydrogenated oils. On average they contain about 35 percent trans fatty acids, but some brands may run as high as 48 percent. Between 15 and 19 percent of the fatty acids in conventionally processed liquid vegetable oils are trans fatty acids.

Many researchers believe trans fatty acids have a greater influence on the development of cardiovascular disease than any other dietary fat. Studies now clearly show that trans fatty acids can contribute to atherosclerosis and heart disease. For example, in animal studies, swine fed a diet containing trans fatty acids developed more extensive atherosclerotic damage than those fed other types of fats.

Researchers estimate that in the United States consumption of
trans fatty acids causes at least 30,000 premature deaths a year! The
New England Journal of Medicine
reported the results of a 14-year study of more than 80,000 nurses (
New England Journal of Medicine,
November 20, 1997). The research documented 939 heart attacks among the participants. Among the women who consumed the largest amounts of trans fats, the chance of suffering a heart attack was 53 percent higher than that among those at the low end of trans fat consumption. Another interesting fact uncovered by this study was that total fat intake had little effect on the rate of heart attack. Women in the group with the largest consumption of total fat (46 percent of calories) had no greater risk of heart attack than those in the group with the lowest consumption of total fat (29 percent of calories).

The researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston who conducted the study said this suggested that limiting consumption of trans fats would be more effective in avoiding heart attacks than reducing overall fat intake. About 15 percent of the fat in the typical Western diet is trans fat.

Trans fatty acids affect more than just our cardiovascular health. According to Mary Enig, Ph.D., when monkeys were fed trans fat–containing margarine in their diets, their red blood cells did not bind insulin as well as when they were not fed trans fats, suggesting a relationship with diabetes. Trans fatty acids have been linked with a variety of adverse health effects, including cancer, heart disease, multiple sclerosis (MS), diverticulitis, complications of diabetes, and other degenerative conditions.

Hydrogenated oil is a product of technology and may be the most
destructive food additive currently in common use. If you eat margarine, shortening, or hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils (common food additives), then you are consuming trans fatty acids. Many of the foods you buy in the store and in restaurants are prepared with or cooked in hydrogenated oil. Fried foods sold in grocery stores and restaurants are usually cooked in hydrogenated oil. Many frozen, processed foods are cooked or prepared in hydrogenated oils. Hydrogenated oils are used in making french fries, biscuits, cookies, crackers, chips, frozen pies, pizzas, peanut butter, cake frosting, candy, and ice cream substitutes such as mellorine.

The processed vegetable oils you buy in the store aren’t much better. The heat used in the extraction and refining process also creates trans fatty acids. So that bottle of corn or safflower oil you have on the kitchen shelf contains some trans fatty acids even though it has not been hydrogenated. Unless the vegetable oil has been “cold pressed” or “expeller pressed,” it contains trans fatty acids. Most of the common brands of vegetable oil and salad dressing contain trans fatty acids.

Saturated fats from any source are much more tolerant of the temperatures used in cooking and do not form trans fatty acids or create harmful free radicals; therefore, they make much better cooking oils. Saturated fats are the only fats that are safe to heat and cook with. Many people, however, are hesitant to use saturated fat because of concern about heart disease. But coconut oil is heart healthy and can be used in cooking without fear. It not only is resistant to heat but is an excellent oil for improving overall health.

Medium-chain triglyceride oils (sometimes referred to as fractionated coconut oil) have become increasingly popular in sports nutrition and in intravenous formulas used in hospitals. You are likely to encounter this term in foods and supplements sold at health stores if you haven’t already.

As you learned at the beginning of this chapter, fatty acids are usually packaged in groups of three. These packages are called triglycerides. Medium-chain triglyceride (MCT) oils are simply oils composed of 100 percent medium-chain fatty acids (MCFAs). These fatty acids are derived from coconut or palm kernel oils. Since the medium-chain fatty acids are associated with many health benefits, manufacturers have developed oils composed entirely of them. Coconut oil, in comparison, contains only 64 percent MCFA.

Some of the unique health benefits of the medium-chain fatty acids found in coconut oil have been known and enjoyed since the 1950s. Because of this, coconut and MCT oils have been and still are used in hospitals to treat malabsorption syndrome, cystic fibrosis, and epilepsy and to improve protein and fat metabolism and mineral absorption. Because of their superior nutritional benefits, MCFAs are used in hospital formulas to nourish seriously burned or critically ill patients. Coconut oil, and more recently MCT oil, has been an important ingredient in commercial baby formulas and is essential in hospital formulas for treating and nourishing premature infants. Athletes use MCFAs to reduce and control weight and increase exercise performance. You may also see MCT or fractionated coconut oil sold by itself for use as a dietary supplement or cooking oil.

The health benefits of MCFAs in coconut oil are many. Each of the individual MCFAs exerts somewhat different yet complementary effects on the body, and all are important. The MCFAs in coconut oil are lauric acid (48 percent), caprylic acid (8 percent), and capric acid (7 percent), in addition to other beneficial fatty acids. Unlike coconut oil, MCT oil consists almost entirely of just two fatty acids; this oil is approximately 75 percent caprylic acid and 25 percent capric acid. In my opinion, this is a major drawback because it contains little or no lauric acid, which is probably the most important MCFA. As I will show in
chapter 4
, lauric acid is an extremely important nutrient that provides some very valuable health benefits. Coconut oil, rich in lauric acid, contains a complete set of MCFAs as well as other nutrients. It provides a balance of several fatty acids rather than just two and, unlike MCT, is completely natural. The fatty acids in MCT oil are extracted and purified from coconut oil, making it a manufactured rather than a natural oil.

The soap and cosmetics industries use lauric acid in the manufacture of cleansing agents. This leaves behind capric and caprylic acids as byproducts that can be cheaply used for other purposes. While not used in the cosmetics industry, these medium-chain fatty acids have important nutritional and pharmaceutical applications. They are used in a variety of supplements and dietary formulas, and they compose the bases of MCT oil.

While having dinner with friends
some time ago, I happened to mention that coconut oil was the healthiest oil one could use. A member of the group objected to my statement and responded emphatically, “Coconut oil is unhealthy; it causes heart disease.” My rebuke was quick and simple, “That must be why all the Pacific Islanders died off hundreds of years ago.” My antagonist didn’t know how to respond to this statement. The simple fact is: Pacific
Islanders, who live on traditional diets rich in coconut, don’t get heart disease.

Coconuts have been a staple in the diets of Pacific Islanders for thousands of years. They eat them by the pound every day. Common sense would tell you that if they were as harmful as we are led to believe, all the islanders should have died off years ago. But until their adoption of modern foods, heart disease and other degenerative conditions were unheard of. Heart disease only appeared in island populations after traditional foods consisting of coconuts and coconut oil were replaced by modern processed foods and refined vegetable oils.

The early explorers who visited the South Sea islands in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries described the islanders as being exceedingly strong, vigorously built, beautiful in body, and kindly disposed. The islanders gained a reputation for their beauty, excellent physical development, and good health. Some of the islands were viewed as the equivalent to the Garden of Eden where the inhabitants were near perfect in stature and appearance. Such observations may have even fueled interest in the folklore of a fountain of youth. Tales of a mystical island containing such a fountain had been popular for centuries in Europe and led explorers, such as Juan Ponce de León, to search in vain for the mythical waters. While a fountain whose waters brought eternal youth was not to be found, the islanders did have a fountain of youth—of sorts. That fountain was in the fruit of the coconut tree, the Tree of Life, as they call it. The coconut, with its life-giving water (the oil and milk), bestowed a level of youthful health on these people that far surpassed that of their European visitors.

It wasn’t until relatively recently that science began to unlock the secrets to the islanders’ good health and discover the many healing miracles of coconut oil. Through the pioneering research of people like Weston A. Price, Ian A. Prior, Jon J. Kabara, and others, we now know that it was the coconut-based diet that was largely responsible for the islanders’ good health and youthful appearance.

It has long been observed that people of the Pacific Islands and Asia, whose diets are high in coconut, are surprisingly free from cardiovascular disease, cancer, and other degenerative diseases. Some of the most thorough research conducted on people who have a high-fat diet derived primarily from coconuts is the Pukapuka and Tokelau Island study. This was a long-term multidisciplinary study set up to evaluate the health of those living on island atolls and the consequences of migrating to New Zealand, where they are exposed to Western foods and influences. The Tokelau and Pukapuka studies were begun in the early 1960s and included the entire populations of both islands, which was about 2,500 people.