Is Coconut Oil Bad for Your Cholesterol?

Hey, everyone. Welcome to my weekly house call. Your chance to ask me your questions. And this week's question is. Ever since I started eating coconut oil, my cholesterol has gone up significantly. And I'm afraid that the coconut oil and the saturated fat there is actually doing me more harm than good. Should I continue to take it? Well, this has been such a popular question since I've expressed my love for coconut oil and MCT oil. And the concern is understandable, especially when your doctor tells you that high cholesterol is bad and your lab work shows concerning numbers. But like I mentioned before, cholesterol is not black and white. There's a lot to discuss here. So before you ban coconut oil from your diet, let's consider a few things. Coconut oil seems to be the latest fad, but what's the real story behind this creamy yummy delight? Well, it's mostly saturated fat and has been maligned along with butter. Sort of guilt by association. But being indicted is not the same as being convicted, and that's far from it. See, countries with the highest intakes of coconut oil with up to 40% of their diet in calories from saturated fat. Some have the lowest rates of heart disease in the world. There's a surprising amount of research supporting the fact that even though coconut oil has higher amounts of saturated fats and, and it does increase total cholesterol, it's not really associated with increased risk of heart attacks or strokes. In fact, studies of the Pacific Islanders who were lean, who were free of heart disease or stroke, they ate up to 63% of their calories from coconut fat. That's 63% of your diet, almost as saturated fat, because coconut oil is 90% saturated fat. Now, their total cholesterol was higher, but. But so was their good cholesterol or hdl. Other feeding studies found that the lipid or cholesterol profile improved on high fat diets containing coconut oil. And it was not the saturated fats from coconut oil that made cholesterol profile worse, because the overall effect is to raise the good cholesterol more, to lower the triglycerides, and to lower the levels of the dangerous small LDL particles which actually cause heart disease. See, coconut oil raises the large, fluffy cholesterol particles that aren't a problem. Coconut oil is also associated with lower insulin levels, which is the key driver of obesity and heart disease and cancer and even stroke and dementia. So again, some fats do raise cholesterol, whereas others lower cholesterol. But even when saturated fat does raise your cholesterol, the type of cholesterol because becomes more important than the total cholesterol number itself. You see, saturated fat does raise the LDL or bad cholesterol, but it also raises the good or HDL cholesterol too. See, sugar lowers the good or HDL cholesterol and it's a ratio of the total to the LDL cholesterol that's far more important predictor of heart attacks than LDL cholesterol itself. So the two main things that predict heart attacks are your total to your HDL ratio. So your HDL is really high. That's good. I saw a woman with a cholesterol 300, right? That sounds bad, but her HDL was 127 and so her ratio was less than 3 to 1, which is fantastic. And she had very low triglycerides and was very low risk for having a heart attack. We also know that the biggest factor that drives heart attacks is the small dense cholesterol particles which you don't get with the coconut fat. So don't be afraid of saturated fat. Instead, maximize healthy sources like coconut grass fed beef and you're going to automatically edge out those unhealthy sources. Combine that with a diet free of added sugars and you have an effective strategy to normalize your cholesterol as well as reduce your risk of heart disease and obesity and type 2 diabetes and numerous other chronic health conditions. And most importantly, get the right tests. If your cholesterol is high, you, you want to know what's really going on. You want to ask your doctor to get the right test, which is the particle size and particle number. And you want to do something called a particle size test. Now the other cholesterol tests your doctor does are outdated. These are called NMR cholesterol. That's the one you want from LabCorp or cardio IQ from Quest. They really don't cost more than a regular profile, but they give you so much more information. These NMR lipid panel from LabCorp or cardioi tests from Quest are really the critical test you need to help insist on getting one of those tests. They're the future of cholesterol testing and it's the only way to know what's really going on with your cholesterol. You want to see what the results show and you want to see how these light fluffy cholesterol particles happen. When you eat saturated fat and coconut fat, you don't want to see the small dents, the artery damaging cholesterol particles. Those come from eating sugar and refined carbs. So the consensus is that in the absence, and this is really, really important as a take home, in the absence of refined carbs and sugar and in the presence of adequate omega 3 fats in your diet, right, you need no sugar and carbs or very low and lots of omega 3 fats, then saturated fat is not a problem. In fact, in one interventional trial, researchers showed that even on a low carb diet higher in saturated fats, that blood levels of saturated fat were lower and that with higher saturated fat diets there was a lower level of inflammation and oxidative stress or free radicals and a better overall cholesterol profile, meaning low total to HDL cholesterol, low triglycerides and larger and more HDL and light fluffy LDL studies show that it's the carbs that worsen blood levels of the even chain saturated fats in the blood that are actually the cause of heart attacks. So it's crazy, but carbs cause high saturated fats in your blood, not saturated fat. These calories also. And these carbs drive your liver to make more fat in the blood. This is called lipogenesis and it's triggered by alcohol, by soda, by sugar, sweetened drinks, by starches and sugars, not by butter or meat or cheese. So again, before you wage a war on saturated fat, it's important to understand what it actually does to your body. I go deep into this research on coconut oil and saturated fat in my new book Eat Fat, Get Thin. And if you're interested in this topic, I encourage you to check it out. Go to eatfategethin.com I also have a 45 minute Q&A if you want to hear more. Now I want to hear from you. Do you eat saturated healthy fats? How has your health changed since you started eating more fat? I want you to share below or on my Facebook page and I want you to submit your questions to drhyman.com so maybe next week I'll make a house call to you.