While I seriously doubt that the removal of coconut oil is the cause of US health problems (I have a big issue with finding one random correlation and assigning causality to that), I fully believe that migrating away from natural oils such as coconut oil and olive oil towards processed fats has had a very detrimental effect on health. My general “rule” for healthy eating is that the more natural and unprocessed it is, the better it is for you. Most studies are far too limited in their variable measurement to remotely come close to anything conclusive regardless of how the results are reported, so unfortunately this is an area where I feel common sense should be applied.
Related to this, I believe that ingestion of EFAs in your preferred (natural!) form aid in PE as well. I know that adding fish oil supplementation to the tune of 10-20 grams per day has a positive impact on my skin healing and hair and it seems discoloration from PE heals quicker. This is anecdotal of course.
UberGoober
6-22-08: 7.5' BPEL, 7' NBPEL, 7.75' BPSFL, 5.25' EG
Goals: 8' NBPEL, 6' EG, 21' NBPSFL