COMMENTS ON 2005 DIETARY GUIDELINES

TITLE:  Re-establishment of Adequate Coconut Oil Usage in the Foods in the United States, and the Importance of its Choice for Good Health Through the Benefit of its Medium-Chain Saturated Fatty Acids

The current (2005) Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) allows the government to speak with one voice regardless of the accuracy of that speech.  This means that for the next five years (beginning in 2005), all the incorrect directions for saturated fats will be in control.

The Key Findings of the 2005 DGA Committee contain the recommendations to "Choose fats wisely for good health".  In the more detailed part of the report, the statements are all in   opposition to choosing saturated fats even though there is ample published evidence that saturated fats are quite healthful and even essential under many circumstances.  This is especially true for coconut oil and its medium-chain triglyceride fatty acids, which serve as anti-microbial fats, as anti-obesity energy source, anti-inflammatory fats to fight coronary heart disease, and as fatty acids needed for cellular signaling.  From the literature, we know:

1. Coconut oil is an important medium-chain saturated fat,which has been shown by research to benefit humans by maintaining or increasing HDL cholesterol, by increasing appropriate weight loss, and by providing anti-microbial benefits.

2. Coconut oil has been recognized in numerous studies for beneficial effects on CHD risk factors, such as Sundram et al (1994), who added coconut oil to diets, found (good) HDL cholesterol increasing 6.3% and (bad) LDL cholesterol decreasing 0.1%, which clearly showed a desirable effect.  In other trials, Ng et al (1991) fed 75% of the fat ration as coconut oil (24% of energy) to 83 adult normocholesterolemics (61 males and 22 females).  Relative to baseline values, HDL cholesterol was increased 21.4%, and the LDL/HDL ratio was decreased 3.6%.

3. Medium-chain saturated fatty acids contained in coconut oil have also been shown in recent years' research in both humans and animals to have beneficial effects with respect to weight loss and maintenance of that weight loss.  This research has been done in the United States, Canada, Japan, and several parts of Europe.

4. The anti-microbial effects of lauric acid and other medium-chain saturates from coconut oil have been  well studied and publishedin numerous journals.

5. Specific to CHD Sundram et al (1994), who added coconut oil to diets, found (good) HDL cholesterol increasing 6.3% and (bad) LDL cholesterol decreasing 0.1%, which clearly showed a desirable effect.  In other trials, Ng et al (1991) fed 75% of the fat ration as coconut oil (24% of energy) to 83 adult normocholesterolemics (61 males and 22 females).  Relative to baseline values, HDL cholesterol was increased 21.4% and the LDL/HDL ratio was decreased by 3.6%.

In order to understand how inappropriate are the 2005 Dietary Guidelines Recommendations regarding saturated fat, you need to know the history of the recommendations beginning with the McGovern Committee Dietary Goals of the late 1970s.  You need to know that the original recommendations regarding fat were developed by lawyers who had no scientific background and by industry lobbyists whose economic agenda was to push polyunsaturated oils and partially hydrogenated oils into the guidelines while pushing out saturated fats from the recommended foods.  This agenda was not understood by the Congressional audience as a marketing grab by corn oil and soybean oil interests, while giving the impression that they were health-related items.

The attempt to protect the trans fatty acids is well-documented in the McGovern Committee papers.  The original charge from Ancel Keys in the late 1950s that partially hydrogenated fats and oils were a cause of coronary heart disease was incorrectly challenged by some food industry scientists who claimed that this charge should be directed instead to the saturated fats in the hydrogenated oils, and not to the trans fatty acids of the partially hydrogenated oils.  The members of that first dietary goals committee and every committee since then (usually at five-year intervals), have not had scientific understanding to recognize the singular guilt of the trans fatty acids and the lack of guilt of the saturated fatty acids as the cause of coronary heart disease or other diseases such as cancer.  Finally those who for decades argued for both the innocence of the trans fatty acids and the guilt of the saturated fats have accepted they were wrong on the trans fatty acids.  It is time they accepted they were wrong on the saturated fats too.

The initial effort to demonize saturated fatty acids in general was directed at coconut oil, which contains about 90% saturates and, therefore, the highest of saturated fats.  It should be noted that coconut oil has only 28% long-chain saturates whereas, for example, cottonseed has about 30% long-chain saturates (Enig 1991), and other longer-chain saturates can make up close to 65% of some other oils.  These long-chain saturates, having desirable cooking, baking, and other functional characteristics, were the competition to the trans fatty acids which HHS now seeks to minimize or remove from in the diet -- and it was the trans fatty acid products the food industry wanted to protect at all costs from even legitimate criticism.

The U.S. food industry was wrong in its widescale adoption of trans fats, and millions of consumers have ingested trans fats and continue to do so.  Now HHS is waking up to the overwhelming science that trans fats from partially hydrogenated vegetable oils are bad for human health.  Yet the perception of tarred saturates like coconut oil remains uncorrected.  Saturate are (i) an integral part of the mother's milk, (ii) the principal fatty acid group in the brain, (iii) a necessary component in cell structure, and (iv) are the chief fatty acid for the muscles' energy.  The list goes on.  Yet saturates are still deemed by HHS as "bad".

The 2005 DGA needs to be corrected now.  Not five years from now.

Thank you.

Edgardo D. Santos

References:

Enig MG. Fat, Calories and tropical oil in perspective.  Food Product Design, Weeks Publishing Co. Northbrook, IL. Pp. 16-17, May 1991

Ng TKW, Hassan K. Lim JB, Lye MS, Ishak R, Nonhypercholesterolemic effects of a palm-oil diet in Malaysian volunteers. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 1991; 53: 10155-10205.

Sundram K. Hayes KC, Siru OH, Dietary palmitic acid results in lower serum cholesterol than does a lauric-myristic acid combination in normolipemic humans. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 1994; 59; 841-846.

Papamanjaris AA, MacDougall DE, Jones PJ. Medium-chain fatty acid metabolism and energy expenditure; obesity treatment implications.  Life Sciences. 1998; 62: 1203-15.

Han J, Hamilton JA, Kirkland JL, Corkey BE, Guo W. Medium-chain oil reduces fat mass and down-regulates expression of adipogenic genes in rats.  Obesity Research 2003:11:734-44.

St-Onge MP, Ross R, Parsons WD, Jones JP. Medium-chain triglycerides increase energy expenditure and decrease adiposity in overweight men.  Obesity Research. 2003; 395-402.

St-Onge MP, Jones PJ. Physiological effects of medium-chain triglycerides: potential agents in the prevention of obesity.  Journal of Nutrition 2002; 132:329-32.

Isaacs CE, Schneidman K. Enveloped viruses in Human and Bovine Milk are Inactivated by Added Fatty Acids (FAs) and Monoglycerides (MGs), FASEB Journal. Abstract 5325, p. A1288, 1991.

Isaacs CE, Kashyap S, Heird WC, Thormar H. Antiviral and antibacterial lipids in human milk and infant formula feeds.  Archives of Disease in Childhood 65:861-864; 1990.

Isaacs CE, Litov RE, Thormar H. Addition of lipases to infant formulas produces antiviral and antibacterial activity. Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry 3:304-308;1992.

Kabara JJ. Fatty acids and derivatives as antimicrobial agents -- A review, in The Pharmacological Effects of Lipids (JJ Kabara, ed) American Oil Chemists' Society, Champaign IL, 1978.