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Dr. B. M. Hegde MD, FRCP, FRCPE, FRCPG, FRCPI, FACC, FAMS, is presently the Chairman of State Health Society, Govt. of Bihar, India, Visiting Prof. Cardiology at The Middlesex Hospital Medical School - University of London, Affiliate Prof. of Human Health - Northern Colorado University, Visiting Prof. Indian Institute of Advanced Studies - Shimla, Retd. Vice Chancellor, MAHE University - Manipal. Prof Hedge regularly gives talks on AIR, Doordarshan, BBC and Zee TV, London.
Team Mangalorean welcomes Dr. B.M. Hegde to our
"Health Beat" section. We are positive our readers will benefit from
his vast medical knowledge.
"Opinions cannot survive if one has no chance to fight for them." - Thomas Mann.
Up until the 1930s every American food manufacturer used only coconut
oil in food preparation. Palm oils had to be imported as little coconut
grew in the US. The local farmers, after the economic depression of the
1930s, insisted that there should be no import of edible oils. Around
that time, may be a little later, after the second world war, a new
disease was born-the fat theory of atherosclerosis.1 Many
factors contributed to its success, least of all the affluence of Europe
and increased food consumption there. Concurrently, there was a
parallel effort at disease labeling (inventions) going on. 2
Scientific research had better backing from the governments and there
was money available for research. New theory of "risk factors" was born.
Reductionist science is blind to its own inherent lacunae of looking at
bits and pieces and not the whole. We have seen the birth of evidence
based medicine full of problems with its evidence base.3
Epidemiology
did serve us well in the arena of contagious disease control. Sadly,
the same was applied to chronic degenerative disease field without much
scientific foundation, resulting in epidemiologists creating imaginary
epidemics! One such was coronary artery disease, which was with mankind
from "times out of mind." A Chinese lady, aged 39, was recently
discovered buried twelve feet deep in the snow in northern China. It is
estimated that she should have died around 2500 years ago. Her heart had
a large myocardial infarct associated with a fully blocked left
anterior descending artery! The best description of angina pectoris was
given thousands of years ago in the Indian Ayurvedic text, Madhava
Nidhana, which could never be bettered even today. Curious are the ways
of the world of science! 4
Whereas Heberden only guessed that his chest pain could have come
from his heart, while his own student thought that the teacher must have
had syphilitic aortitis, Madhavan Nidhana, an Ayurvedic text, clearly
stated that angina was a classical disease of the heart. Unfortunately,
modern medicine labels this disease as Heberdens angina. It is, in
fact, a truly Indian disease. A study published in The Lancet in 1987 by
Stehabens found no evidence of even one per cent absolute recent
epidemic rise or a later fall in this disease in the last one hundred
years. The apparent relative increase was found to be due to labeling
errors, advancing age of the population and wrong death certification
without postmortem confirmation.5 In fact, many sudden
(electrical) deaths, due to alcoholic cardio-myopathy, had been (I think
are still being) labeled as heart attacks!
Despite all these evidences to the contrary, epidemiologists went
ahead and produced a monster, coronary artery disease epidemic, and
discovered as many as two hundred forty odd risk factors. Steven Milloy,
a renowned American epidemiologist, writing in his book Science without
Sense, goes to prove that epidemiology in chronic disease scenario is a
curse.6 If I, for example, were to state that wearing a
tight brasserie daily is a risk factor for cancer breast, it would take
epidemiologists to study five hundred million women (double the
population of the US) to disprove that hypothesis-a task impossible.
Similar is the fat hypothesis for atherosclerosis.
The first ever Diet-Heart Study in Framingham, which began in 1954
ending in 1959, after having spent $110 million American tax payers
money, only showed that the two are not connected! Alas, the study did
not see the light of the day in print as the vested business interests,
who by then had already established billion dollar business on food fats
and heart healthy foods etc, saw that the results never got published.7
A recent study of elderly French women living in a nursing home showed
that those with the highest cholesterol levels lived the longest; the
death rate was more than five times higher for women with very low
cholesterol.8 One has to remember, though, that cholesterol lowering agents net billions of dollars in cash to the Pharma lobby annually.
The MRFIT study (1976-80), which initially screened 360,000 Americans
to get a sample of around 12,000 high risk subset for studying coronary
risk factor control. It used 250 researchers in 22 centres in 18 US
cities spending around $ 150 million. After all that effort the result
is here for all to see. "In conclusion, we have shown that it is
possible to apply an intensive long-term intervention program against
three coronary risk factors with considerable success in terms of risk
factor changes. The overall results do not show a beneficial effect on
CHD or total mortality from this multifactor intervention".9 They do not want to destroy their rice bowl, at any cost.
With this background the poor coconut oil got the boot in the west as
newer polyunsaturated fats came in a big way and thousands of industry
funded "scientific studies" had proclaimed to the world that coconut oil
is very bad because it is a saturated fat. Misinformed lay press and
the public believed the "scientific" world. All saturated fats were said
to be the reason for the cholesterol induced epidemic of coronary
disease. This powerful lobby could influence the thinking of the medical
world through a plethora of studies, all of which when scrutinized
scientifically fall by the way side.1, 3, 7, 8 Coconut lobby
was not there and even a few individuals who thought otherwise were
silenced effectively by the vested interests. Truth can not be
suppressed for all times. Most, if not all, of the polyunsaturated fats
sold to the gullible public have been shown to be dangerous and a search
for better fats landed researchers in the backyard of coconut palms,
the cholesterol myth notwithstanding.
Let us analyze cocoanut oils horoscope scientifically. Coconut oil
had the bad Shani Desha since the 1930s, but the times have changed and
it is going on to the Guru Desha now. Hopefully it will have this good
Desha for all times to come. Fats are more scientifically classified
into three varieties based mainly on the number of carbon atoms they
posses and the length of the chain-Short Chain having between C4-C6
carbon atoms, Medium Chain having between C6-C10 or so and Long Chain
with C11-C24 atoms. The saturated, unsaturated classification is for the
convenience of the fat lobby to sell their wares. Science is what
scientists do. Science is only curiosity and, as such, could never be
bad, but scientists could definitely be bad when the circumstances
warranted. The problems for man would not cease as long as the present
market economy lasts. God help mankind!
Little over 50% of cocoanut oil is medium chain fatty acid, Lauric
acid and another 7-10% is a medium chain Capric acid. Lauric acid gets
converted inside the human system into MonoLaurins. the best fat that
mothers milk has.10 Other than mothers milk monolaurins are
found only in cocoanut oil. New born babies and infants depend on the
monolaurins for their immune system development and their capacity to
withstand any infection.11 In addition, cocoanut oil can be
digested by the salivary lipase, getting absorbed very fast to give
energy like carbohydrates. All other fats need the pancreatic lipase for
digestion that the infants do not have. The best alternative food fat
for the infant when mothers milk is not available is coconut oil. (In
baby foods). Other fats might be dangerous.12 There is a
report published in the British Medical Journal showing the dangers of
using Soya fat for babies. The report also warns adults to take Soya
oils cautiously!13
Coconut oil is a low calorie fat and as such helps control body
weight. In addition, coconut oil stimulates metabolism to get itself
metabolized fast to supply quick energy unlike all other fats. This also
helps control body weight. Changing the food fat to coconut oil could
help reduce weight in obese individuals.14 It also helps to
control blood fat levels in diabetics. Because most of cocoanut oil is
medium chain fat it gets absorbed and metabolized so fast that it rarely
gets transported to fat depots like other fats, altering the
lipoprotein fractions of blood, another great boon. Coconut oil contains
so many anti-oxidants that it resists oxidation even if it is preserved
for as long as a year whereas all other fats would have been already
oxidized and have become Trans fatty acids by the time they come on the
food store shelves! Coconut oil resists oxidation even on boiling at 76
degree centigrade. So there are no Trans fats in coconut oil.15 While fried foods are not good for health, if fried in coconut oil, fried foods are not that bad, after all.
The monolaurins in the cocoanut oil have been found to be very
powerful anti bacterial, antiviral and antifungal agents. Most viruses,
including the retrovirus HIV, are sensitive to cocoanut oil. Coconut oil
has been found to be an excellent moisturizer for dry skin conditions
and is known to be even absorbed from the skin surface of preterm
babies. A diet rich in coconut oil reduces diurnal postprandial
variations in circulating tissue plasminogen activator antigen and
fasting lipoprotein (a) compared with a diet rich in unsaturated fat in
women.16 Coconut oil is said to penetrate hair roots to keep hair healthy and clean.17 They have even found some very interesting therapeutic values in cocoanut oil.18
A recent report shows how it could be used to treat aluminum oxide
poisoning (agricultural pesticide content) for which there had never
been any specific antidote so far.19
Coconut oils regular use in diet would regularize blood fats and is
known to increase the HDL cholesterol fraction while decreasing the LDL
and triglycerides significantly; disproving the myth that coconut oil
increases cholesterol and triglycerides.15, 20 Coconut oil
has been now classified as a functional food. Functional food was
defined as "food that provides health benefits over and above the basic
nutrients." No other fat could claim that status except the Indian
clarified butter-ghee, which according to Ayurveda is an excellent food
for good health and strength. Even the west has now learnt a bitter
lesson. After having realized the dangers of polyunsaturated fats in
margarine they have coined a new slogan: "butter is better".
In conclusion, one could easily surmise that coconut oil that has
been our staple food for thousands of years could not have suddenly
become so bad in the 1930s that it had to be thrown out of the window.
Our thousands of years of observational research is any day more
reliable compared to the short term cross sectional motivated research
today. Although Aristotle did say that truth could only influence half a
score of men in a Century, truth will have to triumph at the end. The
sad state of the Polynesian migrants to the west coast of America is
there for all to see. Prof. Castles elegant studies did show the curse
of acculturation of these long living sturdy people whose main food was
cocoanut till they became American citizens. With modernity Polynesians
were succumbing to all the degenerative diseases precociously. They
never had atherosclerosis in their natural habitat what with 80% of
their calories coming from cocoanut. Long live the coconut tree, the
venerated kalpavriksha, for the common good of humankind.
"Free man is by necessity insecure; thinking man is by necessity uncertain." - Eric Fromm.