Phytosterols and Phytostanols: Functional Food Cholesterol Busters

摘要

Growing recognition of their health benefits may lead to a boost in marketing of these cholesterol-lowering functional food ingredients in food products. Few functional food ingredients have created more recent interest than phy-tosterols and phytostanols (also called plant sterols and stanols). When consumed, these natural phytonutrients significantly reduce levels of "bad" serum low-density-lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) in humans. Yet in spite of their proven benefit sales of phytosterol-containing products have not lived up to their promise.