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USDA Study Shows Plant Sterols Lower Cholesterol...Take Good Health To Heart With Vegetable-Derived Phytosterols
People who already eat a low-fat diet to reduce cholesterol might lower it more by consuming a soybean extract with high levels of substances called plant sterols, according to preliminary new research, Agricultural Research Service . . . The research is preliminary but offers new evidence that soybean and other plant extracts containing sterols can increase the cholesterol-lowering benefits of a healthy low-fat diet...People who want to reduce their cholesterol through diet may see better results by including low-fat foods having added sterols as part of their low-fat diet.
Researchers said cholesterol reductions nearly doubled in the study's men and women volunteers, when their low-fat diet included two daily servings (4 tablespoons total) of soybean sterols. The volunteers consumed the sterols--2.2 grams or about ½ teaspoon--daily for three weeks of the six-week study.
The study was conducted at (ARS) Agricultural Research Service's Beltsville Human Nutrition Research Center/US Department of Agriculture.
Potential dietary benefits of plant sterols, including cholesterol reduction, have been studied for decades. The Beltsville study was unique in examining plant sterols as an ingredient in low-fat foods and as part of a tightly controlled low-fat diet. Most studies have looked at sterol effects in higher fat foods.
The soybean extracts used in the study are compounds known as sterol esters. Their molecular structure is similar to cholesterol. Researchers said sterol esters most likely lowered the volunteers' cholesterol by limiting its intestinal absorption.
The volunteers began the study with their levels of "bad" (LDL) cholesterol in the mildly elevated range. For six weeks, they ate all their meals at the Beltsville center. For three of those weeks, their daily diet included 2.2 grams of soybean sterols as an ingredient in salad dressing. On the low fat diet alone- -without plant sterols--the volunteers' total and "bad" cholesterol levels dropped 7.3 and 8.4 percent, respectively. With the sterols, the reductions were nearly double: 14.1 and 18.2 percent. Not surprisingly, the volunteers' levels of 'good' (HDL) cholesterol stayed the same."
Overall fat intake in the study diet amounted to 32 percent of total calories. A 36-percent fat diet is about the average for American adults. It is important to distinguish between healthful "good" fats and unhealthy saturated fats.
Curiously, 10% of the volunteers lowered their cholesterol only during the part of the study that included sterol esters. "Many people with high cholesterol," the leading researcher noted, "do not respond to a low-fat diet alone and rely on prescription cholesterol-lowering drugs. The key question is, could dietary plant sterols also help these kinds of people?"
Researchers conducted the study with the Diet and Human Performance Laboratory; including the chemist who lead the center's Phytonutrients Laboratory; and other scientists who specialize in plant-derived nutrition.
The sterols used in the study already occur--in low concentrations--in many raw and refined vegetable- based foods including vegetable oils. A typical American diet provides approximately 0.25 g of plant sterol per day. It would be impractical to try to consume 2.2 grams a day of sterols from refined oils or other foods.
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