No, you need not avoid coconut completely; it has a lot of saturated fatty acids and other nutrients which our body needs. Think of selenium which is important in free radical scavenging and excretions of heavy metals is present in the highest amount here.

Moreover, we need some saturated fatty acids for our body, my personal experience is, avoid meat and meat products, all the processed foods and also the fast or junk foods, then you can eat enough coconuts because of hidden saturated fatty acids in these foods. In places where coconut is used in all foods, the people are not getting more heart attacks than in other places.

Avoid the other risk factors, such as smoking, overweight, excessive sweets, high fat meals, excessive alcohol, laziness, stress and homocysteine; then you can eat as much coconut you like, this is my personal experience. The saturated fatty acids in coconut are only 30% of the total fat and are not long chain fatty acids, which may have more adverse effects, but are short and middle chain fatty acids.

Sometimes, theoretical knowledge, practical experience and research may give significant results than the believed facts. In these fields more research is needed to understand many riddles about food and our metabolism.