From Mary T. Newport, MD: The media has irresponsibly taken viral a fragment of information purporting that coconut oil may be bad for your heart from an article published in the medical journal “Circulation” 2017, 135:e1-24, as a presidential advisory committee report from the AHA, “Dietary Fats and Cardiovascular Disease”.
The four “core studies” this committee relied on were all conducted in the 1950s, were relatively small groups of men only in three of the four studies, were conducted in populations that almost certainly were not consuming coconut oil on any regular basis, and were studies comparing diets with ANIMAL saturated fats to diets with polyunsaturated fats.
Animal and human fat is well known to store hormones, pesticides, antibiotics and other environmental substances, which could be a factor in heart disease, whereas vegetable fats such as coconut oil would not be so likely to contain these potentially harmful substances. The authors do not mention whether age and smoking were controlled for in these studies; smoking, which was very prevalent in the 1950s compared to the 2010’s is a major contributor to heart disease…
