Comparison of the effects of plant sterol ester and plant stanol ester-enriched margarines in lowering serum cholesterol concentrations in hypercholesterolaemic subjects on a low-fat diet

Abstract

Objective: To investigate cholesterol-lowering effects of stanol ester (STAEST) and sterol ester (STEEST)-enriched margarines as part of a low-fat diet. Design: According to a Latin square model randomized double-blind repeated measures design with three test margarines and three periods. Setting: Outpatient clinical trial with free-living subjects. Subjects: Thirty-four hypercholesterolaemic subjects completed the study. Interventions: Subjects consumed three rapeseed oil-based test margarines (STAEST, STEEST and control (no added stanols or sterols)) as part of a low-fat diet each for 4 weeks. Results: Mean daily intake of total plant sterols plus stanols was 2.01 ± 2.04 g during the two test margarine periods. In reference to control, serum total cholesterol was reduced by 9.2 and 7.3% with the STAEST and STEEST margarine, respectively (P`0.001 for both). The respective reductions for low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol were 12.7 and 10.4% (P`0.001). The cholesterol-lowering effects of the test margarines did not differ signi®cantly. The presence of apolipoprotein E4 allele had a signi®cant effect on LDL cholesterol response during the STAEST margarine only. Serum sitosterol and campesterol increased by 0.83 and 2.77 mgal with the STEEST (P`0.001), respectively and decreased by 1.18 and 2.60 mgal with the STAEST margarine (P`0.001). Increases of serum sitostanol and campestanol were 0.11 and 0.19 mgal with the STAEST margarine (P`0.001), repsectively. No signi®cant changes were found in serum fat-soluble vitamin and carotenoid concentrations when related to serum total cholesterol. Conclusions: STAEST and STEEST margarines reduced signi®cantly and equally serum total and LDL cholesterol concentrations as part of a low-fat diet.

Safety of long-term consumption of plant sterol esters-enriched spread

“…Efficacy may depend on many different factors like intake level (Hendriks et al, 1999;Hallikainen et al, 2000a), background diet (Hallikainen et al, 2000b;Denke, 1995), composition of the sterol mixture (Jones et al, 2000;Sierksma et al, 1999) and specific characteristics of the subjects studied Tammi et al, 2000;Vuorio et al, 2000), like genetic background, compliance and eating moment. Mietinen et al (1995) reported a slightly higher efficacy, most likely due to the larger intake of plant stanols as compared with the plant sterol intake in the trial reported here (2.6 g stanols vs 1.6 g sterols per day).…”

“…Four doubleblind placebo-controlled studies directly compared the efficacy of plant sterols and stanols (Weststrate & Meijer, 1998;Hallikainen et al, 2000b;Jones et al, 2000;Normen et al, 2000). These short-term human trials, either dietary controlled or in free-living conditions, showed a similar (Weststrate & Meijer, 1998;Hallikainen et al, 2000b;Normen et al, 2000) or a better (Jones et al, 2000) blood cholesterol lowering efficacy for plant sterol esters-enriched spreads compared with spreads enriched with plant stanol esters.…”

Hypocholesterolaemic effects of plant sterol analogues are independent of ABCG5 and ABCG8 transporter expressions in hamsters

“…The target cDNA templates from one hamster were amplified with the degenerated primers by PCR (Perkin Elmer Applied Biosystems, Wellesley, USA). After separation from the templates by electrophoresis on acrylamide gel, the PCR products were purified and cloned using plasmid pCR 4 -TOPO (Invitrogen, Ontario, Canada). Recombinant plasmids were purified using a plasmid mini kit (Qiagen, Ontario, Canada).…”

Effects of low-fat hard cheese enriched with plant stanol esters on serum lipids and apolipoprotein B in mildly hypercholesterolaemic subjects

“…When the absorption of cholesterol decreases, the synthesis of cholesterol in the liver increases, thus enhancing cholesterol turnover (Gylling et al, 1999). Several studies have shown that 2-3 g of plant stanols per day reduces total and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) concentrations without changing highdensity lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) and triglyceride (TG) concentrations Hallikainen et al, 2000a;Nestel et al, 2001;Mensink et al, 2002).…”

“…In most studies, the cholesterol-lowering effect of plant stanol ester has been studied with plant stanols incorporated in an ordinary or low-fat margarine (Gylling and Miettinen, 1994;Gylling et al, 1995Gylling et al, , 1997Miettinen et al, 1995;Hallikainen and Uusitupa, 1999;Hallikainen et al, 2000aHallikainen et al, , b, 2002Tammi et al, 2002) or mayonnaise (Vanhanen et al, 1993;Miettinen and Vanhanen, 1994). Mensink et al (2002) also reported that a yoghurt enriched with 3 g/day of plant stanols reduced LDL cholesterol significantly.…”