Re: New saturated fat study- What do you think?

[Guest guest]

>

> Would love to hears thoughts about this...Is there something about

> the interaction of fats with the sugar and refined flour?

>

,

Someone who cares enough needs to look up the details of the study and

see if they used hydrogenated or fractionated coconut oil. But that's

not me.

B.

[Guest guest]

> Don't most commercial products that use coconut oil use the

hydrogenated or fractionated variety? Somehow I doubt that the guinea

pigs in this experiment were given milk shakes made with raw milk from

grass fed cows, etc. From what I've glanced at so far, this seems to

bolster the fact that junk food will kill you.

I don't know about most commercial products, there are many

reasonable--if too sweet--commercial (like from WFN or The Raw Bakery)

products out there with good coconut oil, but, according to Bruce

Fife's latest newsletter, any scientific study concluding coconut oil

promotes heart disease has used hydrogenated or fractionated coconut

oil or oxidized cholesterol administered via coconut oil.

TeResa B

[Guest guest]

>

> --- In , " kristinmoke " <kmoke@>

wrote:

> >

> > Would love to hears thoughts about this...Is there something about

> > the interaction of fats with the sugar and refined flour?

> >

> ,

> Someone who cares enough needs to look up the details of the study

and

> see if they used hydrogenated or fractionated coconut oil. But

that's

> not me.

> B.

>

Yeah, you have to pay for the full journal text and it's not that

important to me. Until recently, I would just roll my eyes and move

on, but I just started teaching childbirth classes and I've been

including some WAP advice and resources, so now I feel more compelled

to find the holes in these mainstream studies that pop up in our local

paper almost daily...yesterday it was another AP article on the danger

of salt

[Guest guest]

> I'm sure Bruce Fife has done much more thorough research on this than

> I have but I have never seen a study that showed any kind of coconut

> oil to promote heart disease. It's important to keep in mind the

> endpoints, and not just skepticism about the source of coconut oil.

> This study, for example, did not show that their snack led to heart

> disease.

>

Here's the quote I paraphrased:

" So many people have the opinion that coconut oil causes heart

disease that you would assume that there are numerous studies to

substantiate this belief. The fact of the matter is that there are no

studies that show that coconut oil promotes heart disease. You can

search until you are blue in the face but you won't find a single

study that can prove that coconut oil causes heart disease.

I'm talking about natural, non-hydrogenated, non-adulterated coconut

oil, the type that is normally eaten every day by millions of people

worldwide as part of their normal diet. Some people have pointed out

studies using hydrogenated or fractionated coconut oil combined with

experimental (i.e., unnatural) diets as proof that coconut oil is

harmful. These studies don't show anything of the kind, they only show

that oils that are chemically altered and combined in experimental

diets lacking certain nutrients can possibly lead to health problems. "

and

" It is true that researchers often incorporate coconut oil into diets

used to induce atherosclerosis in lab animals. But it is not the

coconut oil that causes the plaque buildup in the animal's arteries.

Atherosclerosis in these cases is caused by oxidized cholesterol fed

to the animals... The reason why coconut oil is preferred is because

coconut oil is an excellent carrier oil and oxidized cholesterol

dissolves easily in it. Any oil combined with oxidized cholesterol

will promote atherosclerosis... "

But he say

Heck, here's the whole flippin' piece, it implies any studies are few,

but apparently out there:

Bruce Fife

<bruce@...>

Dr. Bruce Fife a.k.a. " Dr. Coconut " answers your questions about

coconut, diet, and nutrition.

Does coconut oil cause heart disease? I came across a study in which

coconut oil was used to induce atherosclerosis. How can this be if

coconut oil is heart friendly?

Hardly a week goes by that I don't read in a newspaper, magazine, or

book and hear on the television or radio that coconut oil promotes

heart disease. So many people have the opinion that coconut oil causes

heart disease that you would assume that there are numerous studies to

substantiate this belief. The fact of the matter is that there are no

studies that show that coconut oil promotes heart disease. You can

search until you are blue in the face but you won't find a single

study that can prove that coconut oil causes heart disease.

I'm talking about natural, non-hydrogenated, non-adulterated coconut

oil, the type that is normally eaten every day by millions of people

worldwide as part of their normal diet. Some people have pointed out

studies using hydrogenated or fractionated coconut oil combined with

experimental (i.e., unnatural) diets as proof that coconut oil is

harmful. These studies don't show anything of the kind, they only show

that oils that are chemically altered and combined in experimental

diets lacking certain nutrients can possibly lead to health problems.

That is no surprise. When you manipulate foods and alter their natural

nutritional profiles anything can happen.

I recently had an experience that illustrates how these studies can be

misinterpreted. I was speaking at a university on the merits of

coconut oil. During my presentation I discussed the unfounded claims

that coconut oil contributes to heart disease and referred to several

studies backing my position. I explained how natural coconut oil does

not have a harmful effect on blood cholesterol levels and that

populations that use coconut oil as their primary source of fat have a

remarkably low incidence of heart disease.

At the end of the talk I answered questions from the audience. In

attendance were people who sincerely wanted to learn about coconut and

a few who were skeptical, including some who were even oppositional.

One member of the audience claimed to be a medical researcher. He was

of the opinion that coconut oil caused heart disease. To back up his

position he stated that researchers induce atherosclerosis in lab

animals using coconut oil. Thus proving that coconut oil causes heart

disease and that I was wrong.

I don't know if he was truly ignorant of the facts or was just trying

to create opposition, but he brought out an interesting point that can

cause confusion. It is true that researchers often incorporate coconut

oil into diets used to induce atherosclerosis in lab animals. But it

is not the coconut oil that causes the plaque buildup in the animal's

arteries. Atherosclerosis in these cases is caused by oxidized

cholesterol fed to the animals. Oxidized cholesterol is not the same

as the cholesterol we generally get in our foods or the type that is

manufactured in our bodies. Oxidation chemically alters the

cholesterol, making it toxic. When researchers feed oxidized

cholesterol to animals it damages artery walls causing atherosclerosis

to develop in a relatively short amount of time, generally just weeks.

Researchers dissolve oxidized cholesterol in oil before feeding it to

animals. The oil serves as a carrier. That's its purpose. The reason

why coconut oil is preferred is because coconut oil is an excellent

carrier oil and oxidized cholesterol dissolves easily in it. Any oil

combined with oxidized cholesterol will promote atherosclerosis, even

soybean oil or olive oil. Coconut oil is used primarily because it is

easier to work with. It is the oxidized cholesterol that causes damage

to arteries, not the carrier oil it is combined with.

When people read an abstract to a study and see that a combination of

cholesterol and coconut oil was used to initiate atherosclerosis they

could mistakenly interpret that to mean that coconut oil promotes

heart disease. These studies do not demonstrate that coconut oil

causes atherosclerosis. It is the damaged cholesterol that is the

culprit here. If coconut oil did cause atherosclerosis people eating

the oil would develop heart disease. But there are no studies that can

show a relationship between coconut oil consumption and heart disease.

Every single published study on this topic shows a reverse relationship.

The Pukapuka and Tokelau island study provides a good example.

Virtually the entire populations of both islands participated in the

study. Researchers discovered that these people were getting as much

as 50 percent of their daily calories from the consumption of coconut

oil, yet they had no signs of heart disease. Even though their diet

contained massive amounts of coconut oil they were free of

atherosclerosis.

Studies in the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Papua New Guinea, India, and

elsewhere show that populations that rely on coconut oil as their

primary source of fat have extraordinarily low incidence of heart

disease. As these people abandon coconut oil in favor of other oils

heart disease increases. If coconut oil promotes heart disease why

does heart disease increase when coconut oil consumption decreases?

This pattern is seen throughout the world where coconut oil has

traditionally been used. You can't say it is the diet in general that

is always at fault because in many of these populations the diets have

remained virtually unchanged except for replacing coconut oil with

processed vegetable oils and margarines.

Historically, heart disease was unheard of in most populations that

rely heavily on coconut oil. Heart disease has only become an issue

here as coconut oil has been replaced by other oils. For instance, in

Papua New Guinea, where coconut oil has been a primary source of fat

in the diet, the very first heart attack death occurred in 1964. Prior

to that heart disease was virtually unheard of. It was only after the

introduction of processed vegetable oils that heart disease surfaced.

Experimental diets that induce atherosclerosis in lab animals combine

oxidized cholesterol with coconut oil amounting to about 5-10 percent

of total calories. Studies generally last only a few weeks. In this

time the oxidized cholesterol has caused enough damage for a

measurable amount of atherosclerosis to build up in the animal's

arteries. In other words, these special diets initiate atherosclerosis

in a matter of weeks. If coconut oil was the primary cause of this

condition anyone who consumes coconut oil would die of heart disease

in just a few years. Yet people as old as 96 years of age who have

consumed coconut every day of their lives have shown no evidence of

atherosclerosis.

The saturated fats in coconut oil are unique. They are known as

medium-chain triglycerides. Besides coconut and palm kernel oils the

next best dietary source of these special saturated fats is breast

milk—nature's perfect food. If the saturated fats in coconut cause

hardening of the arteries and heart disease, why does nature put them

in mother's milk? It is completely illogical to believe that nature

has formulated the perfect food to contain a deadly poison that would

cause disease in a matter of weeks.

Human breast milk contains the same amount of saturated medium-chain

triglycerides as the lab diets designed to produce atherosclerosis,

but without the damaged cholesterol. Infants which can breastfeed for

up to three years do not develop atherosclerosis. Obviously, these

saturated fats aren't the cause of heart disease. If they were, the

human race would have become extinct ages ago.

Some people because of preconceived prejudices fail to see the

obvious. I challenged my critic to cite any studies that could show

that coconut oil, without oxidized cholesterol, caused heart disease.

He could not. So he reversed the challenged and asked me show him

studies that proved that coconut does not cause heart disease. I told

him that I have already done that during the lecture and referred

again to the Pukapuka and Tokelau island study which showed that even

very large amounts of coconut oil in the diet has no harmful effect on

the heart or circulatory system.

His reply was that he didn't accept these studies because they were in

opposition with his belief. He stated that he believed more in the

studies using oxidized cholesterol. This was an interesting statement

because the diets in these studies are developed artificially in a

laboratory and are designed to promote atherosclerosis in mice,

monkeys, and other animals. The studies I presented represented real

life in human populations. His refusal to recognize these studies

demonstrates how prejudice can override common sense and scientific

fact. I think the only way this type of individual will come around is

when the media changes position and begins to broadcast that coconut

oil is heart friendly. But I don't see that happening any time soon.

In the meantime, we need to be leery of anyone who claims to have read

studies that show that coconut oil promotes heart disease, it just

isn't so. & #9632; "

[Guest guest]

--- wrote:

> Would love to hears thoughts about this...

>

> One High-Saturated Fat Meal Can Be Bad

>

> By JOE MILICIA

> Associated Press Writer

>

> CLEVELAND (AP) -- Eating just one meal high in saturated fat - in

> this case, carrot cake and a milkshake - can quickly prevent " good "

> cholesterol from protecting the body against clogged arteries, a

> small study shows.

" Rubbish " according to Colpo (who used to post on NN). He

goes into detail about why:

http://www.theomnivore.com/One_High-Saturated_Fat_Meal%20.html

I guess it's only appropriate that someone from Australia debunk a

study that came from Australia!

[Guest guest]

> This just in from the author: the coconut oil was virgin and organic,

> obtained from a health food store in Austrailia.

>

Yeah, but...you've since read this, right?

http://www.theomnivore.com/One_High-Saturated_Fat_Meal%20.html

B.

[Guest guest]

Dr. Mike Eades (Protein Power) has his commentary up on this.

http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/

Also Regina Wilshire (scroll way down to " step away from the burger " ):

http://weightoftheevidence.blogspot.com/

Connie

>

> > Someone who cares enough needs to look up the details of the

study and

> > see if they used hydrogenated or fractionated coconut oil. But

that's

> > not me.

>

> Hydrogenation is one factor -- I would guess a small one considering

> how saturated coconut oil is, but I might be wrong since trans fats

> can be harmful in pretty small amounts -- but virgin is also another

> factor.

>

> In any case, I haven't looked at the study yet but from the abstract

> what it appears they did was they took a blood sample after the

meal,

> isolated the HDL from this blood sample, and then took isolated

cells

> and incubated them with HDL, and either measured their expression of

> certain inflammatory compounds directly, or gave them something that

> induced the expression of inflammatory compounds and then measured

> them, and compared the effects of incubating them with the two

> different HDLs (those isolated after coconut oil or those isolated

> after safflower oil).

>

> It sounds like an in vivo study in the article, where they actually

> measured how their arteries were functioning, but it's really more

of

> an in vitro study whose relevance might be questionable. I'll look

at

> it later.

>

> Chris

>

> --

> The Truth About Cholesterol

> Find Out What Your Doctor Isn't Telling You:

> http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com

>

[Guest guest]

Thanks Chris. I appreciate your taking the time to talk science about

these studies.

Connie

>

> Connie,

>

> > Dr. Mike Eades (Protein Power) has his commentary up on this.

> > http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/

>

> I think his strong point is noting the lack of conclusive relevance

of

> the in vitro portion of the test.

>

> The point that this is in the context of junk food is mediocre, I

> think. Certainly, I would like to see this in the context of meat

and

> vegetables or something instead of carrot cake and a milkshake, but

> the sugar was controlled for. The finding on the adhesion molecules

> is both statistically significant and I can't imagine it isn't

> practically and theoretically significant. The expression of

adhesion

> molecules was reduced by HDL isolated from blood after the safflower

> oil meal and substantially increased by HDL isolated from blood

after

> the coconut oil meal. The only difference between the meals was the

> type of fat -- so at a minimum you have a finding attributable to

the

> fat. If the context modifies that, that is important, but the mere

> possibility can't dismiss the finding.

>

> But, because of the first, stronger point, there is nothing

conclusive

> about the finding.

>

> The weak point he makes is on statistical significance:

>

> > >A nonsignificant trend toward impairment of endothelium-dependent

> > >vascular reactivity in conduit arteries was also demonstrated

after the

> > >saturated fat meal.

>

> >Hey, guys, there ain't no such animal. Just like a woman can't be

> >trending toward pregnancy, there is no nonsignificant trend toward

> >anything. It's either significant or it isn't. Period. Unless, of

> course, you're

> >trying to pull the wool over someone's eyes.

>

> First of all, this is silly. If something is 4.9% likely due to

> chance it is a finding, but somehow if it is 5.1% due to chance it

is

> somehow magically not a finding? This type of reasoning is

> ridiculous. The 5% standard is an arbitrary convention. Obviously

> there is negligible difference in the importance of or confidence

with

> which we can accept a finding if it is 4.9% due to chance or 5.1%

due

> to chance, but yet we would arbitrarily *completely* dismiss the

> latter by his standard and accept the former.

>

> Second, if he believes this, he should apply it consistently.

> Although the LDL was lower in the coconut oil group than the

safflower

> oil group, it was also lower in the coconut oil group at baseline.

> The actual change in the percentage that LDL increased after the

meal

> in both groups is very small -- just under 7% in both groups at 3

> hours, and about 10% in the safflower group and 7% in the coconut

oil

> group at six hours. The differences between the groups in the

amounts

> of cholesterol was statistically significant, but meaningless, since

> they differed at baseline. The effect of time (that is, the

> difference between baseline, 3 hours and 6 hours) in both groups was

> not statistically significant (p=0.17), which by his reasoning means

> that there was effectively NO percentage increase in LDL in EITHER

> group, meaning there couldn't possibly be a difference between the

> two.

>

> By contrast, the difference in flow-mediated dilation between time

> points was considerably closer to statistical significance (p=0.7),

> which means that the difference between meals which has similar

> statistical significance (p=0.08) could actually be important.

>

> The much more important point about the flow-mediated dilation

> experiment is the one Colpo makes (and which the authors also make

in

> the discussion), which the doctor above does not: there was a

> substantial (25% higher in coconut oil group) difference between the

> baseline flow-mediated dilation before the coconut oil and safflower

> meals. Thus, we don't know to what effect the reduction in

> flow-mediated dilation was affected by type of fat or by the

apparent

> coincidence of the basline values.

>

> In fact, the flow-mediated dilation was substantially HIGHER in the

> coconut oil group at all time points. It simply declined twice as

> much at the 3 hour mark (17% reduction in safflower group versus 32%

> reduction in coconut oil group). But it was still higher in the

> coconut oil group even at this point (9%).

>

> This is a seriously important point. The fact that the correlations

> were 7% liklihood of being due to chance rather than a 5% lilihood

of

> being due to chance, by contrast, is an incredibly unimportant and

> probably counterproductive point.

>

> > Also Regina Wilshire (scroll way down to " step away from the

burger " ):

> > http://weightoftheevidence.blogspot.com/

>

> This commentary is comparatively weak on the whole.

>

> >both types of fat had acute effects that could be

called " damaging " but

> >with no real statistically significant differences. As the

researchers put

> >it, " a non-significant trend toward impairment... " Not only was it

a " trend " -

> > it was a NON-SIGNIFICANT trend, basically nothing to get your

panties

> >in a wad about;

>

> Same comments as abive on the extreme weakness of this argument.

>

> >the high-polyunsaturated fat " meal " resulted in a statistically

significant

> >rise in LDL (remember that pesky " bad " cholesterol) compared to the

> >saturated fat " meal " ;

>

> This is simply false; the safflower meal did not result in any

> statistically significant change in the LDL concentration, nor did

the

> coconut oil meal.

>

> >the researchers failed consider or measure the effect of a major

> >confounding variable - the effect of sugar on blood glucose levels

and

> >thus insulin levels when combined with either type of fat;

>

> They " considered " it by controlling for it!

>

> >the researchers failed to completely isolate the effects of either

fat type

> >because they fed a high-fat, high-sugar mixed meal concoction that

> >would not be replicated in a real world experience!

>

> I don't know what " real world " she is living in, but I'm pretty sure

> that high-fat, high-sugar meals are pretty common. Anyone who eats

> carrot cake or milkshakes for example...

>

> >saturated fatty acids do not activate endothelial expression, they

simply

> >do not inhibit it;

>

> That's not very comforting. If my food should be inhibiting

> endothelial expression but I'm eating food that does not inhibit it

> instead of food that does, how is that any better than eating food

> that stimulates such expression instead of food that does not? If

one

> accepts the unproven assumption that the coconut oil actually

results

> in a failure to inhibit the expression of adhesion molecules, than

> coconut oil would act by displacing foods with important functions,

> just like refined foods do.

>

> Chris

> --

> The Truth About Cholesterol

> Find Out What Your Doctor Isn't Telling You:

> http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com

>