Plant sterols: a heart-health miracle (or menace, not sure yet)
Plant sterols are being pushed as a sort of miracle cholesterol-lowering food additive, but Dr. Davis of the Heart Scan Blog warns that they could be the next trans fats:
In 2008, there are now hundreds of products that have additional quantities of sterol esters in them, such as orange juice, mayonnaise, yogurt, breakfast cereals, even nutritional supplements. Most of these products proudly bear claims like “heart healthy.”
…
Despite the several clinical trials performed with sterol esters, all of them have examined LDL and total cholesterol reduction as endpoints, not cardiovascular events. It is conceivable that, while sterol esters reduce cholesterol, risk for heart disease is increased due to higher blood levels of sterols.
Emphasis added. Basically, Davis is saying, people who have a rare disorder called sitosterolemia which results in abnormally high absorption of eaten sterols into the bloodstream have very high rates of coronary artery disease, “with heart attacks occurring as young as late teens or 20s.” Recent evidence suggests that people who do not suffer from this disorder, however, do nevertheless have elevated blood levels of sterols when they consume the amounts of sterols recommended to reduce LDL cholesterol, even if it’s less dramatically elevated than in those with sitosterolemia. So how is heart disease risk affected with elevated blood levels of sterols and lower levels of LDL? That hasn’t been studied.
Essentially, we don’t even know whether this substance decreases or increases risk, but based on inconclusive evidence and scientific hubris, we’re being told that it’s healthy food that we should all be eating more of, and it’s getting shoveled into our diets and hyped by the food industry.
The comparison to trans fats is apt. One would hope we learned our lesson after the Center for Science in the Public Interest, America’s greatest public health menace, bullied fast food chains into replacing lard (which likely poses no health risk) with supposedly healthy hydrogenated vegetable oils, the same trans fats CPSI now decries as “causing tens of thousands of fatal heart attacks annually” (their modesty prevents them from noting their own role in promoting the mass consumption of this deadly food).
How about this, let’s stop pumping all this weird crap that we don’t understand into our food supply!
