Are There Any Reasons to Fear Coconut Oil?

The American Heart Association recently declared that coconut oil is damaging to your heart (after getting half a million dollars from the competing soybean industry).

Is there good evidence supporting this claim? Or are they just stubbornly sticking with outdated recommendations, based on severely flawed studies done 40 or 50 years ago?

Nina Teicholz and Dr. Eric Thorn explore these questions in a new commentary, and they reach a pretty clear conclusion:

There's no reason to single out this foodstuff, yet the AHA statement devotes a section to it. Yes, coconut oil contains saturated fats, but if one relies upon the vast majority of available evidence, from teams of scientists worldwide, these fats will neither shorten life nor lead to heart disease.

Medscape: Saturated Fats and CVD: AHA Convicts, We Say Acquit