Revelation!

Doctor Conrado Dayrit – who is the father of Doctor Manolet Dayrit, our Secretary of Health – gave a talk to the Georgetown Club of the Philippines on coconut oil. He is writing a book on this.

The members of the Georgetown Club are educated men and women, most of them in prominent positions. One of those listening was Doctor George Garcia probably the finest heart surgeon in the world. Another was Doctor Jesus Perez, just retired as Dean of the Medical School at Saint Luke’s.

The Club was not only surprised at the talk – they were amazed. And fascinated. Because Doctor Dayrit said very simply, and with crystal clarity, the propaganda about coconut oil being bad for the health is false. It is not only good for the health in general – it is good for the heart!

He begins his book with two devastating quotations:

"The philosophies of one age have become absurdities of the next, and the foolishness of yesterday has become the wisdom of tomorrow."

Sir William Osler

Aequanimitas and Other Addresses

"The history of medicine is largely a substitution of ignorance by fallacies."

Richard Gordon

The Alarming History of Medicine

After ten years of following the US Department of Agriculture Food Guide Pyramid, the US is experiencing epidemic proportions, "obscene rates", of obesity, hypertension, diabetes and heart disease. It is also having a hard time with arthritis, allergies and asthma. Obviously, there is something wrong with the advice to eat a "low fat, high carbohydrate and high polyunsaturated vegetable oil diet". The Food Guide Pyramid is being called "a disaster". American "experts" are now "concocting new diet pyramids", reversing the low saturated fat advice and actually telling people to eat more fats and meat, reduce calories from carbohydrates and to exercise more.

In 1962, Doctor Conrado Dayrit was a member of the Philippine delegation to the International Seminar on Atherosclerosis, held in Bombay, India. Ancel Keys presented his theory that dietary fats cause coronary heart disease. He invited the Asian Pacific cardiologists in attendance to join in his study. The Philippines, India, Pakistan, Indonesia and Taiwan declined, because we did not have enough cardiologists to do the study, and we had no funds.

Keys’ theory struck a responsive chord among cardiology researchers and funding institutions. The very presence of fatty substances in the arteries was a "smoking gun". It was felt that all that was needed to establish causality was to show good association between high saturated fat intake, high serum cholesterol levels and coronary heart morbidity or mortality.

Meanwhile, politico-economic events were also affecting Philippine coconut oil:

• Before 1934, in the first quarter of the twentieth century, coconuts were flourishing industry. Coconut oil entered the US without taxation, and was responsible for 37.4 percent of Philippine earnings in foreign exchange.

• In 1934, because of the growth of the soybean industry in the US, the American Congress passed a Revenue Act that imposed a heavy protective duty on coconut oil. It almost killed the coconut industry and badly distressed the Philippine economy.

• From 1977 to 1979 the Soybean Association of America launched massive media attacks against all tropical oils, especially against coconut oil.

• At present, Filipino doctors, especially cardiologists, continue to accept the dictum that coconut oil is bad. This belief has reached many families and households. Coconut oil manufacturers have had to hide behind a "vegetable oil" label, and avoid "coconut"

In the Year 2000 UFFE RAVNSKOV M.D., Ph. D., published his book: "The Cholesterol Myth, Exposing the Fallacy that Saturated Fat and Cholesterol Cause Heart Disease." He has studied and analyzed meticulously the basic studies that led to the condemnation of coconut oil. They were poorly designed and conducted, and were not only misleading but sometimes amount to scientific fraud. The USDA’s Food Guide Pyramid has failed because it is based on five myths:

1. That high fat foods cause heart disease.

2. That high serum cholesterol is the cause of heart disease.

3. That high fat foods raise blood cholesterol.

4. That lowering your cholesterol will lengthen your life.

5. That polyunsaturated oils are good for you.

RAVNSKOV denies that any of these have been proven to be true. As the most saturated of all fats, coconut oil has been condemned along with a long chain of animal fats and cholesterol as dangerous to health. The double whammy that hit the coconut industry politico-economic sanctions in the 30s and 40s; and scientific denunciation from the 70s to the present, has almost completely strangulated the Philippine industry.

Doctor Conrado Dayrit’s book will present:

1. The state of knowledge about atherogenesis.

2. Health statistics on peoples who consume coconut oil in liberal amounts.

3. What makes the medium chain triglycerides (MCT) of coconut oil so good – their metabolism.

4. What other oil, particularly the omega 6 and omega 3 polyunsaturates, do in the body.

5. The anti-pathogenic action and other uses of coconut oil.

His book is written for scientists, but it comes down to this: coconut oil is the best natural oil in creation.

Doctor Dayrit is 84 years old. If he is able to finish his book, and if it gets an international hearing, it will be a blessing to the Philippines. Like Christ Our Lord on Easter Sunday, our coconut industry will rise from the dead.