Coconut Oil and Health Part 2: Cholesterol and Cardiovascular Disease

As I’ve already pointed out, coconut oil is almost entirely saturated fat and for this reason the Food and Drug Administration, World Health Organization, Department of Health and Human Services, American Dietetics Association, and American Heart Association advice against its consumption due to the effect of saturated fats on cholesterol levels. What a buzzkill for coconut lovers. Yet many defenders of coconut oil argue that the majority of saturated fats in coconut oil are of medium chain length, which produces a favorable effect on cardiovascular disease and CVD risk factors. So what are the effect of coconut oil on cholesterol levels? And more importantly, what does the scientific literature suggest about coconut oil and cardiovascular disease? Let’s find out.

Coconut Oil and Health Part 1: Weight Loss

Coconut oil has oozed into mainstream nutrition lately and established itself as a seemingly miraculous health food. Proponents sing its praises and seem to hold it in god-like esteem. But do these claims hold up to the rigors of scientific research? Furthermore, what are the health effects of consuming coconut oil, good and bad? Let’s find out.

Is Saturated Fat Bad For Your Liver?

A few months ago a study titled “Effects of n−6 PUFAs compared with SFAs on liver fat, lipoproteins, and inflammation in abdominal obesity: a randomized controlled trial“ was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. This study compared the effects of polyunsaturated fat, in the form of sunflower oil, with saturated fat, in the form of butter on various markers of health. The results of this study seem to indicate that saturated fat produces higher insulin, higher levels of inflammatory mediators, a worse lipid profile, and greater accumulation of liver fat. Ouch.

Still, I think there are some problems with this study that weakens it as evidence that saturated fat is bad and polyunsaturated vegetable oils are good. 

Microwaving Food: Unhealthy or Benign?

Is microwaving an unhealthy method of cooking food? Interesting question. Microwaves certainly seem creepy. Do they mutate food into unhealthy, nutrient depleted shells of what they once were? What I looked into about microwave cooking is essentially this: Does it destroy nutrients and does it create dangerous compounds?

Elimination of good stuff:

A while back, the Perfect Health Diet blog discussed the effects of microwaves on reducing flavanoids, finding the effect to minimal or better than other cooking methods in green tea, onions, strawberries, purple potatoes, and 9 assorted vegetables.

This study by the national center for home food preservation examined the effect of microwave blanching vs. boiling water blanching on the retention of several vitamins in turnip greens.

As you can see, boiling caused an almost complete loss of vitamin C, folic acid, thiamine, and riboflavin. The effect was significantly less when microwaved.

The effect of microwaving vs. baking on spinach in this study found that ascorbic acid retention was 47% vs. 51% (a relatively minor difference) and folate retention was 101% vs. 77%, meaning that folate was not decreased at all in the microwaved spinach, but was notably reduced in the conventionally cooked spinach).

Microwaving has been shown to cause a decent loss of usable vitamin B12, often about 30-40%. This is fairly consistent with other cooking methods on B12.

Overall, most studies I have seen show vitamin loss is not much different in microwaved food than food cooked other ways.

Production of bad stuff:

A lot people enjoy bacon. Studies have found that microwaving bacon produces less N-nitrosamines and N-nitrosopyrrolidine (potentially carcinogenic compounds) than frying.

Numerous studies, including this one and this one, have found that microwaving produces less carcinogenic heterocyclicamines in meat than other cooking methods.

Peroxidation of polyunsaturated fatty acids during cooking is a concern of mine and it appears that microwaving and conventional cooking methods don’t differ significantly in their production of these compounds (see this study and this study)

Acrylamide, a possible carcinogen produced when cooking starchy foods like potatoes, may be increased in microwaving compared to frying and baking. I’ve found some contradictory results regarding this though, so I’m not fully willing to say one way or another.

In Conclusion

Some people seem very opposed to the idea of microwaves just on principle. In addition, there are a lot of anti-microwave arguments, most of which seem to misrepresent science. I may amend this post to add a debunking of many of those arguments, but for now I’ll leave it. From what I’ve seen the effect of cooking with microwaves is just like any other method of cooking and likely is not “bad” relative to baking, frying, or boiling. Don’t fear the microwave.

Are There Beneficial Viruses? (Part 1: Antibacterial Viruses)

The role of beneficial bacteria (probiotics) on human health is well established. Various strains of bacteria populate our body (especially the digestive tract) and offer a myriad of benefits which include aiding in digestion, protecting us from toxins, decreasing inflammation, and protecting us from other disease causing bacteria. But just as there are good bacteria and bad bacteria, are there good viruses and bad viruses? In short, yes.

One likely route of viral benefit is in antibacterial action.

Viruses that infect bacteria, known as bacteriophages, can infect pathogens with little damage to us. Most of the extensively studied bacteriophages infect strains of E. coli, though phages exist that can infect various Staphylococci, Streptococci, Listeria, Shigella, and Vibrio bacteria, just to name a few.

Having bacteriophages come in and kill off disease causing bacteria or at least reduce them to numbers which our immune system can handle has great potential benefit to us, especially if we want to avoid using broad spectrum antibiotics that can also kill off good bacteria.

At some point in the future I’ll discuss other ways certain viruses may benefit our health.

Beets

Beets. They don’t always get the universal acclaim of “hip” vegetables like kale, but they’re loaded with health benefits. Let me tell you a little bit about why you should eat your beets.

Dairy and Racism

I recently came across an article in the McDougall Newsletter from March of 2007 entitled When Friends Ask: “Why Don’t You Drink Milk?” that I found pretty interesting (1). Mostly, I found it worth writing a sarcastic blog post about.

John McDougall is a medical doctor who recommends a mostly starch-based, low fat diet and in this article, he outlines some of the problems with dairy products from a health perspective. One of the things Johnny says in the article is that “recommending dairy is racist”. A surprising claim at first, he explains that “Non-whites commonly have a normal, natural “intolerance” to milk sugars, and such sugars consumed after the weaning-time cause them intestinal distress with flatulence, cramps and diarrhea.”

Go Fish.

Fish; delicious additions to any omnivore’s dinner plate (assuming you don’t have an allergy or something). But which ones should you eat?