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If you cannot decide: Oatmeal or eggs, try oatmeal with sunny-side up eggs, avocado, cheddar and chives | more

In spite of the fact that it's true that epidemiological studies still report controversies on the effects of dietary cholesterol and egg intake on the risk for heart disease in patients with diabetes (Shin. 2013; Qureshi. 2006), you as a waredownloadsoft reader will know that convincing experimental evidence for the causative relation between eating eggs and a worsening of health-relevant lipid-markers is more or less simply "non-existent" (read more).

In fact, more recent evidence suggests that "an egg a day" may keep the doctor away about as reliable as the proverbial "apple" of which Alex taught you that it'll keep the doc away.
In contrast to average Joes and Janes, though, individuals with type II diabetes (T2DM) whose metabolic state is characterized by impaired glucose metabolism, atherogenic dyslipidemia, and chronic low-grade inflammation, could be at a disadvantage of which some scientists still speculate that it was not compatible with a high(er) cholesterol diet.

To test whether that's correct and diabetics should better stay away from eggs, researchers from the Centro de Investigacion y Desarrollo in Mexico compared two breakfasts with perceived differences in effects on heart disease risk, eggs and oatmeal, by conducting a randomized, crossover clinical trial in subjects with T2DM.

Figure 1: Effects of eggs and oatmeal breakfast on glucose control and inflammation in type II diabetics (Ballesteros. 2015).

We evaluated the effects of consuming one egg per day for a relatively extended period (five weeks) versus 1/2 cup (40 g) of oatmeal per day on plasma glucose and inflammatory markers, our primary endpoints. Our secondary endpoints included plasma lipids, markers of oxidative stress, and parameters of glucose metabolism, such as glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c). We hypothesized that eating one egg per day would not adversely affect primary or secondary endpoints when compared to an oatmeal breakfast. 

We further hypothesized that eggs would reduce inflammatory markers in this population, likely due to the presence of highly bioavailable carotenoids" (Ballesteros. 2015).

Twenty-nine subjects, 35–65 years with glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c) values <9% (this means they were diabetic, but not really "sick") were recruited and randomly allocated to consume isocaloric breakfasts containing either one egg/day or 40 g of oatmeal with 472 mL of lactose-free milk/day for five weeks.
Following a three-week washout period, subjects were assigned to the alternate breakfast. At the end of each period, we measured all primary and secondary endpoints. Subjects completed four-day dietary recalls and one exercise questionnaire for each breakfast period.

Figure 2: Markers of liver health were improved (reduced), as well.

There were no significant differences in plasma glucose, our primary endpoint, plasma lipids, lipoprotein size or subfraction concentrations, insulin, HbA1c, apolipoprotein B, oxidized LDL or C-reactive protein, which is a bummer and would go against the statement that eggs are more than just "less inflammatory" (i.e. actually anti-inflammatory foods).

However, after adjusting for gender, age and body mass index, aspartate amino-transferase (AST) (p < 0.05) and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α (p < 0.01), one of our primary endpoints were significantly reduced during the egg period.
References:

• Ballesteros, Martha Nydia, et al. "One Egg per Day Improves Inflammation when Compared to an Oatmeal-Based Breakfast without Increasing Other Cardiometabolic Risk Factors in Diabetic Patients." Nutrients 7.5 (2015): 3449-3463.
• Katz, David L., et al. "Effects of egg ingestion on endothelial function in adults with coronary artery disease: A randomized, controlled, crossover trial." American heart journal 169.1 (2015): 162-169.
• Rong, Ying, et al. "Egg consumption and risk of coronary heart disease and stroke: dose-response meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies." Bmj 346 (2013): e8539.
• Shin, Jang Yel, et al. "Egg consumption in relation to risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes: a systematic review and meta-analysis." The American journal of clinical nutrition (2013): ajcn-051318.
• Qureshi, Adnan I., et al. "Regular egg consumption does not increase the risk of stroke and cardiovascular diseases." Medical Science and Technology 13.1 (2006): CR1-CR8.

There are more than a dozen of options for virgin coconut oil on the market and there's no way the normal custumer can tell which one is actually "virgin" and which is a fraud and maybe even adulterated with palm oil - the technology to identify adulterations is there (Manaf. 2007), but I haven't heard of a label that would prove that the products were tested.

You are probably as fed-up with the hype around coconut oil as I am, right? Coconut oil here, coconut oil there. For this, for that and "did you know that coconut oil will also ..." Yes, you can even argue that a new branch of broscientists and snake oil vendors is dealing with little else than coconut oil.

In spite of that, I consider it at least remotely possible that the data from a recent rodent study that was published in the UK Journal of Pharmaceutical and Biosciences (Sharig. 2015) will catch your attention. I am sure you won't catch fire, though, but maybe at least some sparks, when you read that a relatively low dose of virgin coconut oil slowed down the weight gain, even if the oil was added to a non-obesogenic diet. Not excited? Well what about its triglyceride and total cholesterol lowering prowess and it's ability to keep LDL and VLDL in check while increasing HDL significantly - that's at least news-worthy isn't it?
But first things first - here's what the scientists did: The scientists bought a bunch of 2 months old rats. After 2 weeks of acclimatization, they randomly assigned them to one of the following diets:

• Group 1 was fed the normal pellet diet (control),
• Group 2 was administered normal diet with VCO (1 ml/day),
• Group 3 named as HCD received bread with pellet,
• Group 4  animals received HCD bread and pellet with VCO (1 ml/day),
• Group 5 called as HLD animals received cheese with pellet,
• Group 6 named HLD animals received cheese and pellet with VCO (1 ml/day)

All groups had free access to diets and water ad libitum for 10 weeks. To make sure the virgin coconut oil was actually consumed, the VCO was administered by oral gavage at a dose of 1.42 ml/kg. That's the rodent equivalent of ~3 tablespoons of coconut oil which is what Fife recommends in "Coconut Cures" (2005) you should take everyday to - as the title of the book says - prevent and treat common health problems with coconut (not all of the claims made in the book can be considered scientifically proven, btw).
The rodents remained on their respective diets for 8 weeks before... no, not before they were sacrificed, but before the scientists from the Managemant and Science University in Malaysia used a spectrophotometer and commercial enzymatic kits to determine the lipid parameters by enzymatic endpoint method, as well as the plasma total cholesterol (TC), triglyceride (TG) and high-density lipoprotein (HDL) levels were measured using commercial enzymatic kits.

Figure 1: Effect of Virgin coconut oil on plasma lipid profile of albino Wistar rats after 8 weeks (Shariq. 2015).

A brief glimpse at the data in Figure 1 shows that the addition of virgin coconut oil did in fact have a not exactly life-saving, but still health-relevant effect on the lipid metabolism of the rodents. What I personally consider most intriguing is that this was the case for all diets, including the normal one.
References:

• Feranil, Alan B., et al. "Coconut oil predicts a beneficial lipid profile in pre-menopausal women in the Philippines." Asia Pacific journal of clinical nutrition 20.2 (2011): 190.
• Liau, Kai Ming, et al. "An open-label pilot study to assess the efficacy and safety of virgin coconut oil in reducing visceral adiposity." ISRN pharmacology 2011 (2011).
• Manaf, Marina Abdul, et al. "Analysis of adulteration of virgin coconut oil by palm kernel olein using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy." Journal of Food Lipids 14.2 (2007): 111-121.
• Shariq, B., et al. "Evaluation of Anti-Atherosclerotic Activity of Virgin Coconut Oil in Male Wistar Rats Against High Lipid and High Carbohydrate Diet Induced Atherosclerosis."

Bulletproof coffee is a bogus fad, but is it also bad for your blood lipids?

You will probably have heard about the (over-)hyped "bulletproof coffee" (=coffee with butter in it) triggering measurable (and in some cases) significant increases in total and LDL cholesterol in bulletproof addicts (case studies + Toklu. 2015).

Now, the most obvious trigger of the cholesterol increase is the butter you put into the coffee to make it "bulletproof". Another possible reason for the increase in cholesterol is yet the coffee itself. A reason that people apparently forgot about ever since van Dusseldorp, Marijke, et al. published their 1991 paper called the "Cholesterol-raising factor from boiled coffee does not pass a paper filter."
In their study the scientists wanted to test whether filtered coffee would trigger a similarly pronounced increase in serum cholesterol, as it has previously been observed for coffee that was prepared "Scandinavian-style" by boiling ground coffee with water and decanting the fluid into a cup (Arnesen. 1984; Førde. 1985; Aro. 1987).

To test whether the same mess would happen with filtered coffee, the scientists from the University of Nijmegen prepared their coffee as follows:

• Boiled-type coffee was prepared by pouring 0.5l of boiling water onto 25 g of coarsely ground coffee (Roodmerk, Douwe Egberts, Utrecht, The Netherlands) in an 0.5l Thermos flask. Ten minutes later, the liquid was decanted into a second Thermos flask, from which the coffee beverage was poured out into a cup or beaker just before consumption. One batch provided three cups of 0.15 l (5 fl. oz.), prepared with 8 g of ground coffee per cup. The contents of one bottle were usually consumed within half a day, after which another bottle was prepared. Most of the coffee grounds stayed behind in the first and second Thermos bottles. Those grounds that made their way into the cup were discarded by the study subjects. 
• Boiled and filtered coffee was prepared like the boiled coffee, but instead the liquid was poured into the second Thermos flask through a white paper filter (Melitta Nederland, Veenendaal, The Netherlands, 1x4, No. 4006508 200016) held in a conical plastic filter holder" (van Dusseldorp. 1991).

Subjects in both groups were allowed to dilute the brew in the second Thermos bottle with hot water if they found it too strong for their taste.
The caffeine content, measured by reversed phase high-performance liquid chromatography, was 860 mg/1 for the boiled and 887 mg/1 for the boiled and filtered coffee - a difference that is way too small to explain why the 0.9 l or six cups of coffee brew the subjects were instructed to prepare and drink a day had drastically different effects on the cholesterol levels of the apparently healthy, non-smoking, non-medicated, non-dieting 33 male and 33 female habitual coffee drinker (four to seven cups of regular drip-filtered coffee per day) who participated in van Dusseldorp's study.
References:

• Arnesen, Egil, Olav H. Førde, and Dag S. Thelle. "Coffee and serum cholesterol." British medical journal (Clinical research ed.) 288.6435 (1984): 1960-1960.
• Aro, Antti, et al. "Bioled coffee increases serum low density lipoprotein concentration." Metabolism 36.11 (1987): 1027-1030.
• Førde, Olav Helge, et al. "The Tromsø heart study: coffee consumption and serum lipid concentrations in men with hypercholesterolaemia: an randomised intervention study." BMJ 290.6472 (1985): 893-895.
• Park, Taesun, Kyungshin Lee, and Youngsook Um. "Dietary taurine supplementation reduces plasma and liver cholesterol and triglyceride concentrations in rats fed a high-cholesterol diet." Nutrition research 18.9 (1998): 1559-1571.
• van Dusseldorp, Marijke, et al. "Cholesterol-raising factor from boiled coffee does not pass a paper filter." Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology 11.3 (1991): 586-593.
• Toklu et al. "Rise in Serum Lipids After Dietary Incorporation of 'Bulletproof Coffee'." Journal of Clinical Lipidology 9.3 (2015): 462.
• Zhang, M., et al. "Beneficial effects of taurine on serum lipids in overweight or obese non-diabetic subjects." Amino acids 26.3 (2004): 267-271.