Since deodorization distillate, a by-product of rice bran oil production, contains squalene (ca. 8%) and phytosterols (ca. 4%) as unsaponifiable components, the concentration of those materials for their use in the cosmetics and food industries is desirable. In the present work, a novel fractionation method of concentrating squalene and phytosterols from deodorization distillate or the unsaponi...

Amyloid-β (Aβ), major constituent of senile plaques in Alzheimer's disease (AD), is generated by proteolytic processing of the amyloid precursor protein (APP) by β- and γ-secretase. Several lipids, especially cholesterol, are associated with AD. Phytosterols are naturally occurring cholesterol plant equivalents, recently been shown to cross the blood-brain-barrier accumulating in brain. Here, w...

The efficacy of phytosterols and phytostanols added to foods and food supplements to obtain significant non-pharmacologic serum and low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol reduction is well documented. Irrespective of age, gender, ethnic background, body weight, background diet, or the cause of hypercholesterolemia and, even added to statin treatment, phytosterols and phytostanols at 2 g/day ...

Clinical and experimental studies have shown that the use of phytosterol esters as a food ingredient reduces the plasma concentrations of cholesterol and LDL cholesterol, not affecting the HDL cholesterol levels. Based on the use of phytosterols as a food ingredient, we have conducted a 30-day feeding study with Wistar rats, drinking low-fat milk containing phytosterols, in order to evaluate th...

Phytosterols and their derivatives have attracted much attention because of their health benefits to humans and are widely used in food, pharmaceuticals, and cosmetics in the past decades. While most of the research has focused on free phytosterols and phytosteryl esters of fatty acids, few researches reported on phytosteryl phenolates, the esters of phytosterols with phenolic acids. Two novel ...

In a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial we evaluated the effect of dietary chocolates enriched with a wood-based phytosterol-phytostanol mixture, containing 18 % (w/w) sitostanol, compared with placebo dietary chocolates in seventy subjects with primary hypercholesterolaemia (total cholesterol levels below 8 mmol/l). For 4 weeks, participants consumed three servings of the phyto...

3-Hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-coenzyme A synthase (HMGS) in the mevalonate (MVA) pathway generates isoprenoids including phytosterols. Dietary phytosterols are important because they can lower blood cholesterol levels. Previously, the overexpression of Brassica juncea wild-type (wt) and mutant (S359A) BjHMGS1 in Arabidopsis up-regulated several genes in sterol biosynthesis and increased sterol con...

The simple terpenes, carotenoids, phytosterols, and flavonoids compositions of the leaves of Acalypha wilkesiana were determined by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The leaves were rich in flavonoids (about 251.3mg/kg dry weight), carotenoids (76.3mg/kg dry weight), and phytosterols (16.6mg/kg dry weight), but very low in simple terpenes (0.0084mg/kg dry weight). Three flavonoids ...

phytosterols have been used for reduction of cholesterol since 1950. the high melting temperature and chalky taste are the major problems related to the enrichment of foodstuffs with phytosterols. the cristal construct of these compounds could not reduce remarkably the blood cholesterol in comparison with the fatty soluble forms. presence of free and alcoholic forms of phytosterols and also the...

The differences between the biosynthesis of sterols in higher plants and yeast/mammals are believed to originate at the cyclization step of oxidosqualene, which is cyclized to cycloartenol in higher plants and lanosterol in yeast/mammals. Recently, lanosterol synthase genes were identified from dicotyledonous plant species including Arabidopsis, suggesting that higher plants possess dual biosyn...