Healthy Plant Sterols: A Daily "Drip" is Best

Plant-derived sterols and stanols are known to be heart healthy compounds. When consumed in amounts greater than those found naturally in foods, these compounds lower blood cholesterol concentrations in humans. To help consumers gain this benefit, food companies add sterols and stanols to foods.

Now, authors have found that blood plasma low-density lipoprotein (LDL or "bad" cholesterol) is lowered most when plant sterols are consumed in smaller amounts more often throughout the day, rather than in one large amount each day.

Margarine spreads or orange juice enriched with the compounds, for example, often are consumed once daily as part of breakfast.

Among the group that received the plant sterols three times per day, measures of LDL cholesterol decreased by 6 percent, and this decrease was attributed to a substantial reduction in cholesterol absorption compared with the control phase of the study. The 2009 study was published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

By Rosalie Marion Bliss

For more information:

http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2010/100921.htm