If you need to lower your cholesterol—which is a risk factor for heart disease, heart attack, and stroke—your diet is the place to start. The American Heart Association recommends limiting saturated fat to 5 to 6 percent of your daily calories, along with minimizing trans fat, which is found in fried foods and foods containing partially hydrogenated oil. A diet that’s high in fiber can also lower your cholesterol levels by up to 10 percent.
Let’s say you’ve done all of that and still need to get your cholesterol levels down. You may want to add something called plant sterols and stanol esters, or phytosterols, to your diet.
Phytosterols (and ergosterols) are another player on the team to lower cholesterol naturally. Due to their very similar structure to animal cholesterol, they compete for absorption and reduce the amount of animal cholesterol absorbed. Use of plant sterols has been shown to significantly reduce LDL and total cholesterol, without impacting HDL. 4,5,6,7,8 The average reduction in total cholesterol ranged from roughly 5-10% and 5-20% in LDL cholesterol. As with most interventions, the law of diminishing returns applies: the larger the opportunity for improvement, the larger the effect. There also appears to be a dose response to sterols, meaning that when more is consumed, greater reductions in cholesterol are observed. One study showed a jump in the percentage of reduction in LDL from 7.4% to 17.4% when the dose was increased threefold.
“Phytosterols are plant components that are similar in structure to cholesterol, which they compete with, for absorption in the body,” explains Robin Foroutan, R.D.N., an integrative dietitian nutritionist and spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. The less cholesterol you absorb, the lower your cholesterol levels. In fact, consuming phytosterols can lower your total cholesterol by up to 10 percent and your LDL, or “bad,” cholesterol by up to 14 percent, according to the Cleveland Clinic. (Phytosterols don’t affect triglycerides or “good” cholesterol.)
Though all plant foods contain phytosterols, vegetable, nut, and olive oils contain the most. Nuts, seeds, whole grains, and legumes are also good sources. Most foods with naturally occurring phytosterols contain milligram amounts in the double digits, and the American College of Cardiology recommends 1 to 3 grams of phytosterols per day to reduce your risk of heart disease. (The FDA has approved a health claim that at least 1.3 grams per day as part of a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol may reduce the risk of heart disease.)
1. Plant sterols has a strong anti-inflammatory effect on the human body. It can inhibit the body's absorption of cholesterol, promote the degradation and metabolism of cholesterol, and inhibit the biochemical synthesis of cholesterol.
2. It is used to prevent and treat coronary atherosclerotic heart disease, and has obvious curative effect on the treatment of ulcers, skin squamous cell carcinoma, cervical cancer, etc.; it can promote wound healing, make muscles proliferate, and enhance capillary circulation; it can also be used as bile An inhibitor of stone formation.
3. Plant sterols are also important raw materials for the production of steroid drugs and vitamin D3.
4. Phytosterols have high permeability to the skin, can maintain skin surface moisture, promote skin metabolism, inhibit skin inflammation, prevent sun erythema, skin aging, and have the effects of hair growth and hair nourishment. It can be used as a W/O emulsifier for the production of creams. It has the characteristics of good use feeling (good auxiliary spreading, smooth and non-sticky), good durability, and resistance to deterioration.
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