QUESTION:
Is coconut oil actually unhealthy?
ANSWER:
Yes, we can verify coconut oil is not recommended to be a part of your diet.
SOURCES:
Dietary Fats and Cardiovascular Disease: A Presidential Advisory From the American Heart Association
PROCESS:
A lecture by a Harvard professor calling coconut oil "pure poison" has gone viral on YouTube, nearing 1 million views on Wednesday. Karin Michels, a adjunct professor of epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said coconut oil is not healthy, calling it "poison".
It's not "poison," but American Heart Association data has shown more than 80 percent of the fat in coconut oil is saturated — far beyond butter (63 percent), beef fat (50 percent) and pork lard (39 percent).
Last year, WUSA9 reached out to the lead scientist at Harvard University who is advising the American Heart Association on the topic.
“Coconut oil, because it’s so heavily saturated, prevents the breakdown of cholesterol in the body. So, essentially it keeps cholesterol circulating at higher levels and that gets into the arteries and causes inflammation and eventually ruptures the artery wall and causes a heart attack,” explained Dr. Frank Sacks through a Skype interview.
Dr. Sacks’ study says that because coconut oil increases LDL cholesterol—the bad kind of cholesterol—and because it has no favorable effects to your health, they advise against using it.
He said the science speaks for itself.
“We review the evidence, it gets vetted and peer-reviewed externally and internally multiple times. It’s meant to be an authoritative advisory to the public and health professionals. Those kinds of advisories from the American Heart Association are very carefully vetted, and the public should trust them.”
The AHA said the advisory is meant to clear up misinformation about saturated fat and to fight heart disease, which is the leading cause of death around the world.
