Palm Oil Good For Heart
Written by Dr Abiodun Adeoye Saturday, 09 October 2010
Compliance to dietary advice is difficult worldwide. Even among the medical elite with vast knowledge on the need for healthy diet for the heart, very few practise it. It is almost like “do what I say; do not do what I do.” A colleague said “For most of us, we feel a certain twinge of guilt every time we eat a really fatty or greasy piece of food, as we know that it is increasing our risk of suffering from a heart attack… but it tastes so good.”
I agree fat meal tastes well but let us endeavour to stick to heart friendly diet.
Whether vegetarian or no vegetarian, most of us consume large quantity of oil per day. Most of the oil contain large percentage of saturated fatty acid that increases bad cholesterol and reduces good cholesterol in the body which predisposes to heart diseases such as heart attack. While most of the oil will fail heart friendliness test, our old palm oil will scale the test with ease. Contrary to belief that red oil (palm oil) is not good for the heart, there are a lot of researches that proved beyond reasonable doubt that it prevents cardiovascular diseases.
Palm oil
Palm oil is produced from the fruit of the elaeis guineensis. It is a vegetable oil, not an animal or dairy product, and, therefore, does not contain high cholesterol. Palm oil sometimes is confused with palm kernel oil, but is different. Palm oil is derived from the fleshy part of the palm fruits, while palm kernel oil is derived from the seed or the kernel.
Palm kernel oil and palm oil are two different oils with very distinct fatty acid composition. This explanation may not be necessary for some of us that once lived in the villages but the current generation might not have seen a palm fruit before.
Palm oil can be classified as both saturated and non-saturated fat. That saturated fat is bad for the body depends on the type. Saturated fat in red oil is palmitic saturated fatty acid which does not increase the body cholesterol level. Red oil contains a mixture of saturated fatty acids (51 per cent), mono-unsaturated fatty acids (30 per cent), poly-unsaturated fatty acids (11 per cent) and a whole spectrum of anti-oxidative carotenoids (vitamin A), tocopherols and tocotrienols (vitamin E) as major constituents.
Palm oil is trans-fat-free. It does not need to go through the hydrogenation (hardening) process. Trans-fatty acid has been shown to lower the good cholesterol and increase the bad cholesterol. In comparison, most vegetable oils (corn oil, soy oil, cottonseed oil, canola oil, etc) require hydrogenation (hardening) of oil, hence the high concentration of trans-fatty acid.
Benefits of palm oil
•It does not promote the formation of plaques in the arteries. Atherosclerosis is the thickening and hardening of the walls of the arteries. Fatty deposits or plaques are made up of mainly fats and cholesterol. Atherosclerosis results in the narrowing of the lumen of the arteries, thus inhibiting the flow of blood.
•Vitamin E in red oil diet inhibits platelets (blood cells that aid blood clot formation) from sticking together. This high content of tocotrienols (Vitamin E) is very potent anti-oxidants. If a tissue, such as the heart, is starved of oxygen, this condition is termed ischemia. Even short periods of ischemia can cause large amounts of cell damage. If the tissue is re-oxygenated, this process is called reperfusion. In many cases, the sudden supply of oxygen to cells that have been deprived of it causes further damage. This damage during reperfusion of a tissue or organ can be reduced by the use of certain antioxidants.
•Palm oil diet either increases the production of a hormone that prevents blood-clotting (prostacyclin) or decreases the formation of a blood-clotting hormone (thromboxane).
•The high vitamin A (carotenoid) content of red oil is 300 times higher than those of tomatoes in equivalent amount. Vitamin A aids good vision.
Warnings
•I want to plead with some red oil sellers that adulterating it should please stop. All those things added to it negate its benefits.
•In cooking with red oil, please stop bleaching it. The bleaching destroys all the good nutrients in the oil and converts good cholesterol to bad cholesterol. If your reason of bleaching is to prevent the oil from “sleeping,” use your hot plate or burning stove to wake soup up the following morning.
•Limit other oil and use red oil as the people of old age did and enjoyed healthy life.
•Be moderate in consumption.
Till next week, maintain a healthy heart.
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