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"Optimal Phytosterol Dose"
If our enterocyte trash recovery bins are half filled with phytosterols, might vitamins get crowded out too?
We didn't know until last year. But the answer is NO, even with a whopping 9 gram dose.
Vitamin absorption was unaffected. Plant stanols dose-dependently decrease bad cholesterol
concentrations, but not antioxidant concentrations in our blood.
Now 9 grams is like 10 times what we would expect from even a healthy diet...there's a plateau effect.
At that 9 grams a day...you're way out here at the end...but as you can see,
the cholesterol-lowering curve starts to flatten out...at about 2.
So we can pretty much maximize cholesterol-blocking at around 2 grams...2000 mg. The standard
American diet has been measured as low as 78mg a day. Here's like a model American Heart Association diet,
and this is how high folks get eating a plant-based diet— higher than any other diet pattern reported.
That could get you a good 5% cholesterol reduction, but there's definitely room to bump that up further...
if necessary. Those who have improved their diet so much they're no longer eating any cholesterol
should be acing their cholesterol tests. But in rare cases, your body might not be able to get rid of enough
endogenous production. And so, doubling phytosterol intake could easily double LDL reduction down to 10%
which could double heart disease risk reduction.
In terms of whole food sources to maximize cholesterol reduction, seeds provide the most—
especially sesame, then nuts—especially pistachio, and then legumes like peanuts.