The Coconut Oil Miracle (7 page)

The islands of Pukapuka and Tokelau lie near the equator in the South Pacific. Pukapuka is an atoll in the Northern Cook Islands, and Tokelau, another atoll, lies about 400 miles southeast. Both are under the jurisdiction of New Zealand. The populations of both islands have been relatively isolated from Western influences. Their native diet and culture remain much as they have for centuries. Pukapuka and Tokelau are among the more isolated Polynesian islands and have had relatively little interaction with non-Polynesians.

The coral sands of these atolls are porous, lack humus, and will not support the food plants that flourish on other tropical islands. Coconut palms and a few starchy tropical fruits and root vegetables supply the vast majority of the diet for the population. Fish from the ocean, pigs, and chickens make up what little meat they eat. Some flour, rice, sugar, and canned meat are obtained from small cargo ships that occasionally visit the islands. Their diet is high in fiber but low in sugar.

The standard diet on both islands is high in fat derived from coconuts but remains low in cholesterol. Every meal contains coconut in some form: the green nut provides the main beverage; the mature nut, grated or as coconut cream, is cooked with taro root, breadfruit, or rice; and small pieces of coconut meat make an important snack food. Plants and fruitfish are cooked with coconut oil. In Tokelau, coconut sap or toddy is used as a sweetener and as leavening for bread.

The researchers reported that the overall health of both groups was extremely good compared to Western standards. There were no signs of kidney disease or hypothyroidism that might influence fat levels, and no hypercholesterolemia (high blood cholesterol). All inhabitants were lean and healthy, despite a very high-saturated-fat diet. In fact, the populations as a whole had ideal weight-to-height ratios as compared to the Body Mass Index figures used by nutritionists. Digestive problems were rare, constipation uncommon. The people averaged two or more bowel movements a day and were generally unfamiliar with conditions such as atherosclerosis, heart disease, colitis, colon cancer, hemorrhoids, ulcers, diverticulosis, and appendicitis.

The American Heart Association recommends that we get no more than 30 percent of our total calories from fat and that saturated fat should be limited to no more than 10 percent, but the Tokelauans apparently aren’t aware of these guidelines—nearly 60 percent of their energy is derived from fat, and almost all of that is saturated fat derived largely from coconuts. The fat in the Pukapukan diet is also primarily from saturated fatty acids from coconut, with total energy from fat at 35 percent.

Most Americans and others who eat typical Western diets get 32 to 38 percent of their calories from fat, most of which is in the form of unsaturated vegetable oils. Yet they still suffer from numerous degenerative conditions and weight problems. In contrast, the islanders in this study consumed as much or more total fat and a far greater amount of saturated fat than typical Americans yet were relatively free from degenerative disease and generally lean and healthy.

Dr. Ian A. Prior and his colleagues calculated the cholesterol levels of the islanders based on rates observed in Western countries. The islanders’ actual blood cholesterol levels were 70 to 80 milligrams lower than predicted, ranging from about 170 to 208 milligrams per deciliter. Cholesterol levels of the Tokelauans were the higher of the two because they derived 57 percent of total calories from fat, about 50 percent from saturated fat. Their total food consumption, including imported flour, rice, sugar, and meat, was also higher. Dietary cholesterol and polyunsaturated fatty acids of both groups were low. Dr. Prior noted that vascular disease is uncommon in both populations,
and there is no evidence that the high-saturated-fat intake from coconut has a harmful effect.

The migration of Tokelau Islanders from their island atolls to the very different environment of New Zealand was associated with changes in fat intake that indicate increased risk of atherosclerosis. The migration was also associated with an actual decrease in saturated fat intake from about 50 percent to 41 percent of energy, an increase in dietary cholesterol intake to 340 milligrams, and an increase in polyunsaturated fat and sugar. Fat changes included increased total cholesterol, higher LDL (bad cholesterol) and triglycerides, and lower HDL (good cholesterol) levels.

The blood cholesterol of Tokelau Islanders increased when they migrated to New Zealand, despite the fact that the total fat content of their diet dropped, declining from 57 percent in Tokelau, with 80 percent of that from coconut oil, to around 43 percent in New Zealand. They ate more white bread, rice, meat, and other Western foods and less of their high-fiber, coconut-rich foods.

Ian Prior, who headed the studies of these two island populations, stated: “Vascular disease is uncommon in both populations and there is no evidence of the high saturated fat intake having a harmful effect on these populations.” His studies demonstrated that a diet with a very high intake of coconut oil (as much as 50 percent of total calories) was not harmful.

Another series of studies done in the 1990s, known collectively as the Kitava Study, examined the health and diet of South Pacific peoples on the island of Kitava near Papua New Guinea. Over a period of several years Staffan Lindeberg, M.D., Ph.D., and colleagues from the University of Lund, Sweden, studied a population of about 12,000 individuals all of whom maintained their ancestral diet rich in coconut and coconut oil. Although the researchers were concerned about the “high level of coconut consumption,” they found absolutely no evidence of heart disease—none! There was no high blood pressure, no atherosclerosis, no angina (heart pain), no deaths from ischemic heart disease or from stroke; nor were there any such deaths ever recorded by medical authorities on the island.

The research team also found a complete absence of diabetes, dementia, and other degenerative diseases common in the West. Even the oldest members of the population, who lived up to 100 years of age, showed no signs of heart disease or dementia and were healthy enough to remain very physically active. These people eat coconuts and coconut oil every day of their lives. If eating coconut oil daily for 100 years does not promote heart disease (or any other degenerative disease for that matter) then you can safely say that coconut oil will not cause heart disease no matter how long you consume it. How many of us will eat coconut oil daily for 100 years? This series of studies provides further scientific proof that coconut oil is not harmful to the heart.

The conclusion we can make from these and similar island studies
is that a high-saturated-fat diet consisting of coconut oil is not detrimental to health and does not contribute to atherosclerosis. Indeed, those people who eat coconut oil in place of other vegetable oils are amazingly free from the degenerative diseases that are so common in the West. They also have nearly ideal body weight and appear to be examples of perfect health. But when these people replace coconut oil in their diets with other oils and processed foods (which are typically loaded with polyunsaturated and hydrogenated oils) their health declines.

Saturated fat has been labeled a dietary villain that should be avoided at all costs. We buy lean cuts of meat, nonfat milk, and low-fat foods of all types in order to limit our intake of this dreaded substance. But why is saturated fat so bad? There is really only one suggested reason: saturated fat is easily converted by the liver into cholesterol, which can raise blood cholesterol levels, increasing the risk of heart disease.

But, contrary to popular belief, neither saturated fat nor cholesterol
causes
heart disease. This is a fact that all fat researchers and medical professionals know but many of the rest of us do not. High blood cholesterol is only one of many so-called risk factors associated with heart disease. What this means is that those people who have heart disease sometimes also have elevated blood cholesterol levels. Not all people with high blood cholesterol develop heart disease, and not everyone with heart disease has high blood cholesterol. If high blood cholesterol were the cause of heart disease, everybody who dies from this disease would have elevated cholesterol levels, but they
don’t. In fact, most people who have heart disease do not have high blood cholesterol.

Other risk factors associated with heart disease include high blood pressure, age, gender (being male), tobacco use, diabetes, obesity, stress, lack of exercise, insulin levels, and homocysteine levels. High blood cholesterol is no more the cause of heart disease than age or male gender is. It’s guilty only by association.

The term “artery-clogging saturated fat” is a misnomer. The fat that collects in arterial plaque is primarily unsaturated fats (74 percent) and cholesterol. Saturated fat does not collect in the arteries like poly- and monounsaturated fats because it is not easily oxidized, and only oxidized fat ends up as arterial plaque. Vegetable oils are easily oxidized by overprocessing and heating. Furthermore, saturated fat is not the only substance that your liver converts into cholesterol. Other fats, and even carbohydrates, the main nutritional component of all fruits, vegetables, and grains, also end up as cholesterol in our bodies. To infer that only saturated fat raises blood cholesterol is grossly inaccurate and misleading.

All of the criticism that has been aimed at coconut oil is based primarily on the fact that it is a saturated fat and saturated fat is known to increase blood cholesterol. No legitimate research, however, has ever demonstrated any proof that natural, nonhydrogenated coconut oil adversely affects blood cholesterol levels. In fact, numerous studies have clearly demonstrated that coconut oil has a neutral effect on cholesterol levels.

The reason coconut oil does not adversely affect cholesterol is that it is composed primarily of medium-chain fatty acids. These fatty acids are different from those commonly found in other food sources and are burned almost immediately to produce energy, and so they are not converted into body fat or cholesterol to the degree other fats are and do not affect blood cholesterol levels.

While coconut oil’s direct effect on blood cholesterol has generally been shown to be neutral, it may indirectly lower LDL (bad) cholesterol and increase HDL (good) cholesterol by stimulating metabolism (see
chapter 5
for a more complete discussion on metabolic effects). In one study performed in the Philippines, for example, 10 medical students tested diets consisting of different levels of animal fat and coconut oil. Animal fat is known to raise blood cholesterol. Total calories from dietary fat consisted of 20 percent, 30 percent, and 40 percent, using different combinations of coconut oil and animal fat. At all three levels with an animal fat to coconut oil ratio of 1 to 1, 1 to 2, and 1 to 3 no significant change in cholesterol levels was observed. Only when the ratio was reversed so that animal fat consumption was greater than coconut oil and when total fat calories reached 40 percent was a significant increase in blood cholesterol reported. This study demonstrated that not only did coconut oil not have a bad effect on cholesterol levels, it even reduced the cholesterol-elevating effects of animal fat.

A review of epidemiological and clinical studies regarding coconut-eating populations shows that dietary coconut oil does not lead to high blood cholesterol or coronary heart disease. When native peoples change their diets and give up eating coconut oil in favor of refined polyunsaturated vegetable oils their risk of heart disease increases.

People who traditionally consume large quantities of coconut oil as a part of their ordinary diet have a very low incidence of heart disease and have normal blood cholesterol levels. This has been well documented. Those populations who consume large quantities of coconut oil have remarkably good cardiovascular health. Absent are the heart attacks and strokes characteristic in Western countries.

In Sri Lanka coconut has provided the chief source of fat in the diet for thousands of years. Up until the early 1980s every man, woman, and child in that country consumed on average the equivalent of 120 coconuts each year. In spite of the large amount of coconut eaten, the heart disease rate in that country at that time was one of the lowest in the world. Only one out of every 100,000 deaths was attributed to heart disease. Over the past couple of decades processed vegetable oils have replaced much of the coconut oil in the Sri Lankan diet and coconut oil consumption has declined. As a result, an interesting thing has happened: as coconut oil consumption has decreased, heart disease rates have increased! The replacement of coconut oil with other vegetable oils has increased the rate of heart disease rather than decrease it.

In the state of Kerala, India, where large quantities of coconuts and coconut oil have traditionally been consumed, an average 2.3 out of 1,000 people suffered from coronary heart disease in 1979. A campaign against the use of coconut oil on the grounds that it is an “unhealthy” saturated fat led to a decrease in coconut oil consumption during the 1980s. Processed vegetable oils replaced it in household use. As a result, by 1993 the heart disease rate had tripled!

In areas of India where coconut oil has been largely replaced by other vegetable oils, cardiovascular disease is on the rise. Researchers
involved with studies on diet and heart disease in India are now recommending the return to coconut oil to reduce the risk of heart disease. This recommendation is based on their observation of increased occurrence of heart disease as coconut oil is replaced by other vegetable oils.

In Western countries where refined vegetable oil is the main source of fat, heart disease accounts for nearly half of all deaths. It seems that if you want to protect yourself from heart disease, you should replace your processed vegetable oils with coconut oil.