Stanols And Sterols Instead Of Statins?

Most people have gone to the doctor and had a blood lipid panel done at some point in their lives.  And unfortunately, the majority of individuals living in the United States have high cholesterol, which is measured in the blood lipid panel.  And the fallback intervention most doctors immediatly suggest to patients is starting on a cholesterol-lowering medication.  But are there other, better ways to naturally lower blood cholesterol instead of taking medications?  Maybe so.

When an individual gets their results from their blood lipid panel and total cholesterol is high, the immediate response from the doctor is most often to start on a blood cholesterol-lowering medication.  The most common group or class of medications that are prescribed to individuals are called Statins.  You might have heard of the drug Lipitor, this is considered a Statin.  Lipitor is actually the best selling medication in history, that is how many people are prescribed a Statin.  The mechanism of action of Statins is that they inhibit the enzyme that allows the liver to generate or make cholesterol.  Without that enzyme, the liver cannot make new cholesterol, therefore lowering the amount of cholesterol crawling through the bloodstream.

But are there any other interventions that can be just as effective as taking a medication?  Well, let me introduce stanols and sterols from plants!  Plant stanols and sterols are phytoesterols (small but essential components of certain plant membranes). They are found naturally (in very small amounts) in some vegetable oils, nuts, grains, legumes, fruits, and vegetables.

Research has shown that plant sterols and plant stanols have the ability to help lower cholesterol. Hoping to cash in and make common food products even "healthier," food manufacturers have taken these phytoesterols from their naturally occurring sources, concentrated them, and added them to common foods that wouldn't normally contain them, such as vegetable oil spreads (margarine), mayonnaise, yogurt smoothies, orange juice, cereals, and snack bars to name a few.

OK, but how do these phytoesterols work in reducing cholesterol?  Well, on a molecular level, sterols and stanols look a lot like cholesterol. So when they travel through your digestive tract, they get in the way. They can prevent real cholesterol from being absorbed into your bloodstream. Instead of clogging up your arteries, the cholesterol just goes out with the waste.  Thats right, you poop that cholesterol right out!

Experts have been studying the effects of food fortified with plant sterols for decades. One important study of people with high cholesterol found that less than an ounce of stanol-fortified margarine a day could lower LDL cholesterol by 14%.

A more recent study from the University of California Davis Medical Center looked at the effects of sterol-fortified orange juice. Of 72 adults, half received regular orange juice and half the fortified orange juice. After just two weeks, the people who drank the stanol-fortified juice had a 12.4% drop in their LDL cholesterol levels.

The FDA gave these products the status of a "health claim." This means that experts widely agree on the cholesterol-lowering benefits of stanols and sterols. It also allows manufacturers to advertise the heart-healthy benefits on labels.

That being said, foods that contain these plant stanols and sterols are quite expensive.  Typically, these fortified foods are also quite difficult to find.  If you are interested in checking out the stanols and sterols instead of statins, I encourage you to call your local grocery store and see if they are currently stocked!