"To be a dissenter is to be unfunded because the peer review system rewards conformity and excludes criticisms." - George V. Mann (1977)
As a young pharmacologist-cardiologist in 1960, I wrote an editorial in the Journal of the Philippine Medical Association calling on the Philippine government and the coconut industry to support coconut oil research.
At this time, saturated fats, and coconut oil in particular, were being blamed as the cause of heart disease. It was proposed that eating saturated fats increase cholesterol levels, which in turn cause heart disease. This proposition, which came to be known as the Lipid Diet-Heart Theory, rapidly gained acceptance. Contrary findings by other researchers were ignored. Lar Werko, for instance, early on (1976) posed serious questions concerning the method used in the epidemiologic studies to support this hypothesis. So did R.L. Smith (1991), M.I. Gurr (1992), G.V. Mann (1977, 1993) and M.G. Enig (1993). Most seriously, Gurr, and lately, U. Ravnskov, pointed out not just defects, but outright dishonesties, deliberate misinterpretations and conclusions at variance with the data in the major studies supporting the Lipid-Heart Theory. These accusations have remained unanswered and the theory lives on.
Filipino doctors, especially those trained in the medical centers of the West and who attend international conferences, have blindly accepted the indictment against the prime export product of their country and have dutifully been advising their patients not to take coconut oil because "it causes heart disease." No attempt has been made to confirm, much less refute, this derogatory claim against the oil that they, and their parents and grandparents, have been taking for their well-being all their lives. Their brainwashing could not have been more complete.
There are many Filipino scientists who have been active in coconut research. Their studies, however, have been on the agricultural and industrial aspects, not on health.
The maligning of the coconut started in the '30s when the seed-oil industry of the US succeeded
in having coconut oil imports taxed heavily. This continued through the 1980s and reached a climax when the American Soybean Association (ASA) and the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) launched the anti-tropical oil campaigns of 1987-1992. During this time a full-page ad entitled "The Poisoning of America" came out in the New York Times, blaming coconut oil for America's heart disease. This ad was funded by millionaire Phil Sokolf, the head of the National Heart Savers Association. As a result, coconut oil manufacturers hid behind a "vegetable oil" label and "coconut oil" disappeared from the marketplace.
The Hidden Findings
When Dr. Bruce Fife wanted to know about coconut oil, he could not find any articles in the leading U.S. journals of cardiology, internal medicine or medical practice. The only thing he found was the same statement repeated article after article - that coconut oil is bad because it is saturated. No references were cited. The reason for this absence of coconut literature in the journals that most doctors read was that, as Dr. Hans Kaunitz revealed, these refereed journals were rejecting articles favorable to coconut oil.
Dr. Fife finally found the studies on coconut oil in the journal of the American Oil Chemists, and in nutrition and foreign journals. Cardiologists, internists, and most ordinary medical practitioners do not see these journals, much less read them. Thus, the strong lobbying of the U.S. seed-oil industry and the steamroller force of the Lipid-Heart movement together succeeded in literally burying all knowledge about the exceptional virtues of coconut oil in the dustbins of medical lore.
However, such significant findings could not be entirely hidden. Studies on MCTs (medium chain triglycerides), which contain capric and lauric acids, escaped editorial scrutiny and were published. Studiously avoiding the term coconut, MCT researchers managed to make the substance completely accepted as nutritious foods for infants and even premature babies, for the sick, convalescents and the elderly and even for athletes because of its energy-giving properties. MCTs became completely accepted after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) classified them as GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe).
Coconut Oil Researchers
There were a number of scientists who investigated and published studies on the unique qualities and health virtues of coconut oil. Hans Kaunitz was one of the five scientist refugees from Hitler’s invasion of Austria who came to Manila in 1938 to teach in the medical school of the University of the Philippines. He later proceeded to the U.S. to become Professor of Pathology at Columbia University where he conducted some of the earliest studies on coconut oil. He determined that animals fed with the oil remained healthy as long as essential fatty acids (EFA) were adequate. It was the hydrogenated coconut oil used in most animal experiments done at tha time, and given without EFA supplementation, that led to cholesterol rise and vascular lesions interpreted as atherosclerotic. Kaunitz identified essential-fatty-acid deficiency as the real cause of the lesions attributed to coconut oil.
S.A. Hashim, Andre Bach, Vigen K. Babayan and their associates were the first to publish papers in the ‘60s and ‘70s that showed that the absorption, distribution and metabolism of medium chain fatty acids (MCFAs) differ radically from that of the long chain fatty acids (LCFAs). The MCFAs of coconut oil are rapidly absorbed, carried by the by the portal vein to the liver and then oxidized, thus producing energy very rapidly.
Jon Kabara, professor of microbiology at Michigan State University, discovered that the lauric acid of coconut oil, particularly its monoglyceride, was the most potent antiviral, antibacterial, and antifungal agent of all the various fatty acids from different fats and oils that he tested in his laboratory. The antimicrobial activity was specific for lipid-coated or enveloped organisms. Thormar and Isaacs later showed that the killing action of lauric acid was due to leakage followed by the disintegration of the lipid coat of the organisms.
Mary Enig of the University of Maryland was a longtime critic and denouncer of the toxic transfatty acids that are produced by the partial hydrogenation of unsaturated oils. She has been one of the strongest champions of the many health uses of coconut oils, and regrets how America rejected an oil that could have remedied many of its ills. Her campaign against transfatty acids succeeded in convincing the USFDA to require by 2006 that all processed food products state the amount of transfatty acids they contain on their labels.
George Blackburn and his associates at Harvard’s New England Deaconess Hospital showed that coconut oil raises the high-density lipoprotein (HDL) level; he and Vigen Babayan were strong supporters of the Philippines’s fight against the American Soybean Association (ASA) attacks in the ‘80s.
How the Hidden Findings Were Exposed
Dr. Fife was taught to be “anticoconut” like everyone else until he observed that MCTs from coconut oil were being used as food for infants, the elderly, convalescent patients and even athletes. “If MCT is good, how could coconut oil be bad?” he asked. His search for evidence led him to nutrition and oil journals where he discovered the many health facts about coconut oil. Dr. Fife decided to write a book telling his countrymen of the surprising things he found, many of which were contrary to what doctors and the public were led to believe. His books, together with Weston Price’s continuing lectures and Dr. Mary Enig’s articles, are primarily responsible for revealing to the American republic coconut oil’s health benefits.
Meanwhile, a cooperative study was organized between a Philippine research team and Dr. George Blackburn and Vigen Babayan’s Harvard team to answer the ASA attack. The literature search that ensued brought out studies on coconut oil that proved how very wrong were the ASA’s statement about coconut oil.
And, to be fair, the good and the bad of other fats and oils need to be told. This means going to the root causes of coronary heart disease, which is now admitted to be inflammatory and gene-related even by popular magazines like Time, Newsweek and Fortune, along with diabetes, strokes, Alzheimer’s disease and cancer.
The Best Oil on Earth
As I mentioned in the Prologue, many of the health uses of coconut oil were already part of the Ayurvedic medicine of India millennia before the Christian era. These were passed on to our ancestors, who made the oil in the kitchen to keep their hair and skin healthy. Little if any knowledge of this practice remains in the new age. The modern generation is immersed in chemicals and plastics. It is time to rediscover what nature has gifted humankind - coconut oil, the best oil on earth.