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APRIL – MAY 2002 www.nexusmagazine.com NEXUS • 31The following is the second part of a talk and paper, "Coconuts: In Support of Good Health in the 21st Century", presented by Dr Mary Enig at the Asian Pacific CoconutCommunity (APCC) meeting held in Pohnpei in the Federated States of Micronesia in1999. Note that it does make several references to animal experiments, and thatNEXUSdoes not condone animal experimentation. Editor. VI. THE LATEST ON THE TRANS FATTY ACIDSBoth the United States and Canada will soon require labelling of the transfatty acids, which will put coconut oil in a more competitive position than it has beenin the past decade. (In 2001, Canada published examples of the labels it plans touse, while the US is still to finalise its labels.) A fear of the vegetable oil manufacturers has always been that they would have to label transfatty acids. The producers of transfatty acids have relied on the anti–saturated fat crusade to protect their markets. However, the latest research on saturated fatty acids andtransfatty acids shows the saturated fatty acids coming out ahead in the health race. It has taken a decade, from 1988 to 1998, to see changes in perception. During this period, the transfatty acids have taken a deserved drubbing. Research reports from Europe have been emerging since the seminal report by Mensink and Katan in 1990 thatthe transfatty acids raised the low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol and lowered the high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol in serum. This has been confirmed by studiesin the US (Judd et al., 1994; Khosla and Hayes, 1996; Clevidence, 1997). In 1990, the Lipids Research Group at the University of Maryland published a paper (Enig et al., 1990) correcting some of the erroneous data sponsored by the food industry inthe 1985 review of the transfatty acids by the Life Sciences Research Office of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (LSRO–FASEB) (Senti,1985). In 1993, a group of researchers at Harvard University, led by Professor Walter Willett, reported a positive relationship between the dietary intake of the transfatty acids and coronary heart disease in a greater than 80,000 cohort of nurses who had been followed bythe School of Public Health at Harvard University for more than a decade. Pietinen and colleagues (1997) evaluated the findings from the large cohort of Finnish men who were followed in a cancer prevention study. After controlling for the appropri-ate variables including several coronary risk factors, the authors observed a significantpositive association between the intake of transfatty acids and the risk of death from coronary disease. There was no association between the intake of saturated fatty acids ordietary cholesterol and the risk of coronary death. This is another example of the differ-ences between the effects of the transfatty acids and the saturated fatty acids, and a fur- ther challenge to the dietary cholesterol hypothesis. The issue of the transfatty acids as a causative factor in cancer remains underexplored, but recent reports have found a connection. Bakker and colleagues (1997) studied thedata for the association between breast cancer incidence and linoleic acid status acrossEuropean countries, since animal and ecological studies had suggested a relationship.They found that the mean fatty acid composition of adipose did not show an associationwith omega-6 linoleic acid and breast, colon or prostate cancer. However, cancers of thebreast and colon were positively associated with the transfatty acids. Kohlmeier and col- leagues (1997) also reported that data from the EURAMIC study showed adipose tissueTTHEHEHHEALEALTHTH-S-SUPPORTINGUPPORTING BBENEFITSENEFITS OFOFCCOCONUTSOCONUTS Scientific research proves that the saturated fatty acids and derivative compounds found in coconuts and coconut oil have significant benefits for a healthy immune system and metabolism. Part 2 of 2 by Mary G. Enig, PhD, FACN © 1999, 2001 Director Nutritional Sciences Division Enig Associates, Inc. 12501 Prosperity Drive, Suite 340 Silver Spring, MD 20904-1689, USA Telephone: +1 (301) 680 8600 Fax: +1 (301) 680 8100 Email: marye@enig.com