Female Speaker: What about studies that they have done with populations because they found with the Mediterranean people, the olive oil protected their hearts? How about people in the South Pacific Islands? Bruce Fife: Well, you know there was a very interesting study done in Sri Lanka. Now in Sri Lanka, they eat lots of coconut oil. It's the primary oil in their diet and in that study they took a group of volunteers, whose normal diet consisted of coconut oil. They measured their cholesterol values. They then gave them corn oil, a polyunsaturated fat to replace all the coconut oil in their diet. Female Speaker: I am already scared. Bruce Fife: So, after a period of time, they retested their cholesterol values. This is what they found. They found when these people switched from coconut oil to polyunsaturated corn oil, their total cholesterol came down, which is indicated as a good thing. Their LDL or their bad cholesterol also came down, which also is considered a good thing. Female Speaker: Okay. Bruce Fife: So, if you look at both just these two values, you would say, well corn oil definitely is superior to coconut oil. However, when you're factoring the HDL values, the picture completely changed. The HDL values, the good cholesterol also came down when they went to the polyunsaturated oils and their cholesterol ratio actually went up. So, when at the beginning of the study, the cholesterol ratio was under five. Five is considered average. Female Speaker: Alright. Bruce Fife: So, when these people were eating coconut oil as the normal part of their diet, they had below average risk of heart disease, they would below five. When they switched to corn oil, a polyunsaturated fat, their cholesterol ratio jumped up into the high risk category. So according to this study, it showed that the coconut oil compared to corn oil protected against heart disease.