Coconut oil is 'pure poison', says Harvard professor | Hacker News Reader

Coconut oil is 'pure poison', says Harvard professor

theguardian.com

18 pointsleonagano59 comments

Where is the literature? Without strong supporting studies, arguments like these have little merit.

This seems like more of the established argument that saturated and mono unsaturated fats are unhealthy (butter, coconut oil, beef tallow, etc), where in fact polyunsaturated fats are better for you (canola oil, sunflower oil, most fried foods, etc).

I find this hard to believe. Just a simple common sense analysis disagrees: saturated and mono unsaturated fats are found in higher ratios to polyunsatured fats all over nature in the foods our ancestors have been eating for hundreds of thousands of years. One great example is wild seafood, especially salmon.

For those wanting an introduction to the literature on this stuff, "Perfect Health Diet" is a great read.

http://perfecthealthdiet.com/2010/09/saturated-fat-reduces-r...

> foods our ancestors have been eating for hundreds of thousands of years

This isn't a good argument, as our ancestors have also been dying by 40 years of age.

You're right it's not a good argument. A better argument would be taking a look at how long humans have been afflicted by things like heart disease, diabetes, and different types of cancer. I'll give you a hint, they're relatively recent developments in the history of our species.

RE: Dying by 40, how much of that data takes into account infant deaths and things like clean running water? I don't think early humans were dying from "artery clogging saturated fat" and if that was the case, wouldn't we have generally evolved not to eat things that killed us?

> wouldn't we have generally evolved not to eat things that killed us

I'm not convinced that's true, evolution only works to improve fertility; e.g. women after menopause have no evolutionary purpose. Even for men it's not clear why a longer life-span would result in increased reproductive success (maybe men have most/best children when they're young?).

Although I must admit it's surprising that there wasn't more evolutionary pressure to increase the "health-span" of people (i.e. women's fertile years, and men's and women's "peak physical performance" years) - maybe having too many children isn't a good thing (decreases genetic diversity pool and is thus bad for the whole species), or there was another kind of evolutionary trade-off (e.g. human females "waste" eggs by having a "concealed" ovulation every month, instead of being "in heat" (like in dogs) or by ovulating only after sex (like in cats); however, this allows for other evolutionarily beneficial adaptations [1]).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concealed_ovulation

A long lifespan for men results in more reproductive success. Even one offspring from an old man is a success that the man who dies young doesn't have. This is a small factor but small can be enough.

There is also the factor that old people without children can help find food and defend the whole tribe thus ensuring better survival of their grandchildren.

According to a recent Lancet article [1]:

"Atherosclerosis was common in four preindustrial populations including preagricultural hunter-gatherers. Although commonly assumed to be a modern disease, the presence of atherosclerosis in premodern human beings raises the possibility of a more basic predisposition to the disease.

[1] https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/www/external/labor/agi...

> afflicted by things like heart disease, diabetes, and different types of cancer.

How many people die from those diseases before 40?

Seriously?

http://www.diabetesforecast.org/2012/nov/more-kids-than-ever...

Overfeeding kids to the point that they develop diabetes should be considered a criminal offense.

On the other hand, this is something that happens mostly on countries with a huge prevalence of obesity, such as US.

The idea that saturated fat is bad for you is a complete joke and it's frankly embarrassing that so many smart people are still duped by it. Human beings have been hunting and eating animals (mostly ruminants, which are predominantly GASP saturated fat) for hundreds of thousands of years, if not longer. Yet the rates we see heart disease, cancer, diabetes (so-called diseases of civilization) have never been more prevalent than in recent years. Doesn't that suggest the cause is something other than unjustly vilified saturated fat?

> Human beings have been hunting and eating animals ... for hundreds of thousands of years,

This seems a bad argument. Our lifestyles, diet compositions, bodies, ability to diagnose medical illness or cause of death, understanding of nutrition, and lifespans have all gone through several revolutions throughout the years.

The clickbait headline of the article ("pure poison") and and author's comments were inflammatory, which is likely what you're reacting too. However the article does go on to talk about the link between saturated fat as a well-known risk factor for heart disease.

Given the lifestyle trend of humans toward more sedentary living than our hunting/gathering ancestors, suggesting people of today be careful about limiting their intake of saturated fats is a good thing.

But there is absolutely no evidence that saturated fat causes any of the diseases of civilization. Why should people limit their intake of it?

Did early hunter-gatherer populations count calories? I don't think they did and I don't think counting calories is necessary or sufficient for health. If you eat real food (such as... animal fats) you will naturally become satiated enough and know when it's time to stop.

> But there is absolutely no evidence that saturated fat causes any of the diseases of civilization. Why should people limit their intake of it?

This is indisputably wrong. There is a mountain of evidence linking the consumption of saturated fat to cardiovascular disease. The article linked to a recent summary study from the American Heart association. Plenty of others are a simple google search away.

> heart disease, cancer, diabetes

Those diseases have a primary cause: obesity.

And a secondary cause: extension of the life expectancy; people who die at 40 from an infection or an accident, cannot die from cancer or a heart attack at 55.

The importance of saturated fats as a factor in the extension or reduction of life expectancy is orders of magnitude lower than the former two.

There is no scientific evidence to support the statement that Coconut Oil is pure poison. This professor is a quack.

It's what scientists have to say to get into the headlines these days. That doesn't mean his underlying point lacks merit. But it is absolutely frustrating how inconclusive and frequently contradictory science around food and health continue to be.

If there was universal integrity across the board re: food and nutrition companies like Coca-Cola would simply cease to exist.

food is very hard to study.

There are two possible conclusions from a study. First is "despite our best attempt our subjects did not follow the assigned diet". Second is has real conclusions, but the subjects are confined to either a prison cell or hospital bed and so the conclusion doesn't apply to you. This is a little cynical, but the point is valid.

The other problem is human lifespans are a long time. How does eating/skipping food X at 15 affect your lifespan - such a study would need millions of participants that are followed for as much as 80 years. It is very hard to run such a study, and the standards of science have been changing (for good reason!) over time such that it is unlikely any such study even if it completes would be publishable by whatever the current standard are.

To get around the second science studies markers. It is a statistical fact that people with high LDL tend to have heart attacks and die younger than people with normal LDL. However there are people with normal LDL who have heart attacks and die young; and also people with high LDL who live to an old age without ever having a heart attack - why we do not know. We know that saturated fat raises LDL, but we don't know if that is actually a factor in heart attacks - but lacking anything else to go on we assume saturated fat makes a heart attack more likely - this could be false but we have nothing better at this time, and are unlikely to find anything better.

Has this guy been living under a rock for the last 10-15 years! The healthiest fats you can consume are saturated, they don't oxidize has quickly in your arteries and cause blockages. Instead he recommends "rapeseed" oil (Canola) -- that is PURE poison and the reason for so much heart disease. One simple rule to live by, don't fucking eat any type of vegetable oil!

I would expect the write-up from a professor to be academic and scientific. Where is their write-up?

"Michels based her warning on the high proportion of saturated fat in coconut oil, which is known to raise levels of so-called LDL cholesterol, and so the risk of cardiovascular disease. Coconut oil contains more than 80% saturated fat, more than twice the amount found in lard, and 60% more than is found in beef dripping."

I am looking for a scientific write-up that shows the correlation of dietary cholesterol and blood cholesterol as it pertains to coconut oil. This write-up should be a human study that shows a controlled test of a number of subjects consuming coconut oil vs not, and the direct correlation of dietary and blood cholesterol.

Please ignore my irony, but good luck funding that. Almost no well known food item would/has ever go through something like that as it would set you back several (tens) millions. The best you can hope for is a study where people report eating different substances in their daily lives and afterwards you draw conclusions from several biomedical read-outs. But that wont be cheap either, you would just be testing multiple things at once.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5745680/

That is exactly what I was looking for! Thankyou.

But wait... isn't HDL supposed to be the good form of cholesterol?

As if it wasn't already hard to know what to believe... sigh

Good catch, thank you. In retrospective, I should have written 'to prove that there is no effect' since for that you would need a much bigger (and more diverse) cohort over a longer time frame. If you have a strong effect, this is obviously not necessary.

The claim made in the article is regarding saturated fats, not cholesterol, as dietary cholesterol is not obtained from plant sources like coconut oil. Plants do produce phytosterols, which compete with cholesterol for absorption & may lower serum cholesterol.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15166807 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2793103/

That is my understanding as well (regarding cholesterol) and that our knowledge of saturated fats as it pertains to health may not be as accurate as we once thought.

It being high in MCTs is it's USP. I feel like a lot of people using coconut oil are aware of this.

Isn't the role of saturated fats in cardiovascular disease being revisited/questioned nowadays?

...or did my lenses get tinted by the "carbs are poison" crowd?

Everything in nutrition will probably always be revisited. But I think the popularity of the idea that saturated fats are just fine is due to Gary Taubes. There is a mountain of research supporting the medical consensus to strictly limit saturated fats to avoid heart attacks. Here is a good starting point that reveals Taubes' selective and plain wrong use of research reports:

https://nutritionsciencefactcheck.com/2012/09/26/good-calori...

Thanks. Will check this out.

Then, there's this, that I saw today:

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/51/15/1111

So, who knows. I'm glad I went into physics - biology is too complicated.

Wow, yeah. Then again, who knows if the conclusions here are based on the same flawed studies Taubes references. Being a non-scientist, it is quite a fatiguing process to try to make sense of the plethora of contradictory studies. Then on top of that, it's difficult to find someone that can compile them and draw a conclusion without themselves adding bias, or worse, completely misrepresenting the data (news organizations I'm looking at you...) Yeesh.

There are people in Kerala, India. Who pretty much cook all food in coconut oil. How are they able to survive >100 years, if it is pure poison?.

Yes, It does seem that in Kerala where most foods are made with coconut oil, life expectancy is higher than most other Indian states. May be cause of the unpolished riced used there as well.

Kerala also has significantly higher literacy rates than the rest of India. It seems like a state that is overall an outlier, so I suspect there are far too many confounding factors to confidently determine whether the diet is the root cause of a higher life expectancy.

Agreed, but it certainly undermines the idea that coconut oil is absolutely terrible for you

There's a bit of "the dose makes the poison" at play here as well: Cooking with coconut oil is one thing. Making bulletproof coffee with 2-3 tbsp of coconut oil per serving is quite another.

Don’t believe the hype. All saturated fats are not created equal. Coconut oil boosts the “good” HDL cholesterol levels, as opposed to other fats which will only raise your “bad” LDL cholesterol. This article is clickbait and reads like an attempt for an otherwise unknown epidemiologist (not even a nutrition specialist) to raise their profile by saying something provocative with no evidence.

I put this stuff on my face every morning and my skin has never looked or felt better.

I also put it on toast almost every morning, have been doing so for years, and I am the healthiest I've ever been. I mean, I have also taken other steps towards my health (coconut oil is definitely not the biggest factor either) but come on, this article is a joke.

Sounds like fake news.

“Fake news” is news that is deliberately untrue - entirely fabricated stories - in order to attract clicks (for advertising revenue) or to change or muddle public opinion.

Applying it to an article that a person thinks is incorrect based on a sample size of themselves only surves to muddy the meaning of the term.

Aye yeah sorry it was a little joke.

It's very possible that coconut oil could have simultaneously good and bad effects on the body. E.g. it has known antibacterial and antifungal properties. Meanwhile, it's a saturated fat of the kind known to be bad for people's hearts.

So its very possible you could be realizing many short term health benefits from coconut oil, while not realizing it, setting yourself up for a heart attack later in life. Such are the things in life: I would assert most things we eat can be best thought of as a balance between good and bad forms of nutrition, both helping and hurting us. E.g. Salmon, lots of great nutrition there but eat too much seafood and you need to start thinking about your exposure to heavy metals and environmental pollutants...

Hmm... maybe that explains why I like coconut oil so much! Seems like it's always the unhealthy stuff that tastes so good. I highly recommend you make your popcorn with a little high quality coconut oil and a little salt; positively orgasmic.

I've actually found it relatively difficult to even find good, pure, coconut oil (for a reasonable price).

> I've actually found it relatively difficult to even find good, pure, coconut oil (for a reasonable price). A general sign that it can be completely avoid without any harm. I think in general anything that's hyped up by celebrities or primarily promoted by specialist retailers can generally be avoided. I suspect most people promoting it have something to gain $$$. Isn't it amazing how few adverts/celebrity endorsements we have for water, bread (I mean even wholemeal, granary, rye, etc), potatoes, apples, tomatoes, etc

We definitely have gotten plenty of hype for bread over the years. Especially "whole grains". Just look at the food pyramid with 11 freaking recommended servings a day of grains... Provided of course by the US department of agriculture.

I believe the pyramid has been modified now, but I have no doubt it contributed to the obesity epidemic. Bread, even whole grains, contain a lot of sugar.

some people seem pretty pleased with its benefits: https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/behold-the-power-of-coco...

Isn't the primary human use of coconut oil topical? Is it poisonous topically as well?

No, coconut is used extensively in cooking, though perhaps especially South-Asian cooking. The "poisonous" part is because coconut oil is mostly saturated fats. Saturated fats have no adverse effects on the skin.

The last decade it's been featured heavily as a healthy alternative oil to use in food — perhaps boosted by studies (I don't have a link at the moment, unfortunately) that seemed to show that the saturated fats in coconut oil were metabolized in a way that somehow didn't clog your arteries.

Coconut oil also happens to have a high smoke point, so it can be used on high heat, which makes it a great oil for certain types of cooking.

Oh, and pretty much all the popcorn in the US is made cooked with coconut oil; it's part of what makes the "theater popcorn smell".

I have a hard time believing that an oil which is liquid at body temperature is the same threat as saturated fats which are solid at body temperature.

Per the article coconut oil has more saturated fats than lard. Jeez people, read the article.

But there seems to be some disagreement in the nutritional community on whether saturated fats are good for you or not.

It doesn't help that coconut oil legitimately has anti-fungal and anti-microbial properties that probably make it a benefit to foods that its added to, despite its possibly harmful lipid profile.

Perhaps that's the nuance that is missing in this debate that's needed. The shocker that foods can be simultaneously good and bad for you...

The idea that liquid at temperature has anything to do with health is outdated. It seems to have been spread by the transfat supporters 30 years ago, and they have been discredited.

Elaidic acid (major transfat) has a melting point of 113F. And now I see that coconut oil is primarily lauric acid, with a melting point of 110F. They both look bad from the assessment of melting point greater than body temperature.

Have any papers that specifically discredit “liquid at temperature” health implications?

It seems like transfat was only exposed as a problem through long term evaluation, and the studies likely couldn’t determine if it was just transfat with melting points over a certain temp which caused the effects.

I don't know of science (which would be good to have), but it seem unlikely. Fat is broken down in the digestive system by various enzymes, and potentially dissolved in various solvents in the body. The simplistic analysis of melting temperatures is not useful, you need to figure out what happens in the context of the human body (other animals will have a different digestive system) which is very different from what happens on your kitchen counter.

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