Pass the plant sterols, please

Opinion

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This article was published 16/08/2010 (5502 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

MARGARINE that lowers choles­terol? Consumers around the country have recently seen a barrage of billboards, store displays and television spots boasting that health claim as part of Becel pro.activ’s mega-advertising campaign.

The new product contains plant ster­ols and that it is now allowed into your grocery store is due to the advocacy of Peter Jones, director of the Richard­son Centre for Functional Foods at the University of Manitoba.

Becel’s product launch marks the first time Health Canada has permitted foods enriched with plant sterols to tout cholesterol­lowering claims on its labels, says Jones, who for 15 years has studied plant sterols.

The fat-like compounds are thought to block the absorption of LDL choles­terol, also known as bad cholesterol.

Becel pro.active’s move is actually a re-launch, of sorts. The plant sterol­enriched product hit Canadian shelves for a short time in 2001. After a squabble with Health Canada over its use of plant sterols (and health claims), the product disappeared from grocery stores.

That is until May, when the federal agency decided to green light plant sterols in products along with ac­companying promises of cholesterol reduction.

Food industry insiders say Health Canada’s conclusions about plant ster­ols is a big deal because it will open floodgates allowing a slew of other products with health claims to storm the market.

“I don’t want to sound too evan­gelistic,” says Jones, a food chemist and researcher who works as a paid consultant for companies such as Unilever, the corporation that makes Becel. “But this is paving the way for public acceptance and acceptance by health-care professionals that these foods substantially reduce the risk of disease.”

Plant sterols are trendy in the world of functional foods. Research shows that these plant-derived chemicals — that are similar to fats — can signifi­cantly lower so-called bad cholesterol. Plant sterols naturally occur in foods such as nuts, oils, fruits and vegetables. The kind added to foods is usually derived from either vegetable oil or from tall oil, a lipid extracted during the processing of pulp and paper.

For years, Jones and his colleagues have been trying to convince Health Canada to relax its rules and allow foods enriched with plant sterols to boast its cholesterol-lowering abilities right on their labels.

Food manufacturers in Europe and the United States have been allowed to do this for about a decade.

In the summer of 2009, Jones spear­headed the Collaboration for Advan­cement of Plant Sterols in Canada, a committee made up of scientists and food industry.

Along with one of the top lawyers in the field, the group presented their scientific findings about plant sterols to Health Canada and earlier this year Ottawa relented.

It’s a move that Jones admits is financially lucrative for the food industry as it gives consumers another reason — disease control — to pur­chase an everyday food. Plus it gives food companies a bigger presence at the grocery store.

“It means basically more shelf space because they can have product X and their turbocharged product X,” says Jones.

But Jones and other scientists be­lieve it will also benefit our health.

Mohammed Moghadasian, a Winni­peg researcher at the Canadian Centre for Agri-food Research in Health and Medicine, says he’s certain that plant sterols lower heart disease risk.

The scientist says he was the first in the world to show that animals fed plant sterols reduced their risk for coronary disease, heart attacks and atherosclerosis by more than 50 per cent, compared with a control group.

Does that mean as plant sterol­fortified foods hit the market, fewer Canadians will get heart attacks?

“It’s not a very easy question to answer,” says Moghadasian, who has studied plant sterols for 16 years.

He says too many variables — Type 2 diabetes, obesity, lifestyle — affect heart health.

“I’m not aware that any country has reported that after many years of selling plant sterols, they’ve observed significant reduction in heart events,” says Moghadasian, an associate pro­fessor at University of Manitoba.

He says approximately 35 per cent of Canadians have above-normal blood cholesterol levels.

He says people with mild to moder­ate elevated cholesterol will get the most benefit from plant sterols. He notes that a one per cent reduction in cholesterol means a two per cent reduction in heart attack risk.

Some warnings?

Moghadasian says plant sterols don’t replace statins — prescription drugs that lower cholesterol.

And he cautions that plant sterols will harm people with sitosterolaemia, an extremely rare condition in which bodies are unable to metabolize plant sterols normally.

Another possible side effect of plant sterols-enriched food, says Mogha­dasian is that they can reduce the absorption of fat-soluble vitamins.

Registered dietitian Gina Sun­derland counts plant sterols among omega-3s and soluble fibre as health heroes due to their ability to reduce LDL cholesterol levels.

Sunderland says consuming two grams a day of plant sterols for six weeks has been shown to reduce bad cholesterol levels by up to 15 per cent.

And although she’s thrilled Can­adians have the option to purchase products enriched with plant sterols, consuming them doesn’t mean they should skip the exercise and gorge on ice cream.

“It doesn’t give us that freedom” says Sunderland. “Plant sterols should definitely be embraced in combination with other things — physical activity and a diet lower in saturated fats.

“It’s new, but I think consumers are savvy.”

Have an interesting story you’d like Shamona to write about? Contact her at shamona.harnett@freepress.mb.ca