By Devesh Tewari*
Contribution participating in the INPST 2018 Science Communication Awards contest.
The recent talk of Prof. Karin Michels on coconut oil titled “Coconut oil and other nutritional errors” ignited a global concern and a significant hype in all major media newsrooms of the globe. The Harvard Professor of epidemiology declared coconut oil as a “pure poison” and “one of the worst foods you can eat.”. Her statement was based on the presence of saturated fats in coconut oil which are associated with cardiovascular diseases. However, there are reliable reports of epidemiologists which contradict these statements. A meta-analysis published in the Annals of Internal Medicine led by the University of Cambridge analyzed the intake of fatty acids and coronary risk, and their study did not support a restriction of the consumption of saturated fats to prevent heart diseases [1].
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