The British Heart Foundation launches a campaign today to raise awareness of the health risks of high cholesterol levels - nearly two thirds of UK consumers are living with a level above the recommended limit it reveals.
While the charity is encouraging people to cut down on saturated fats, increase exercise and eat more fresh fruit and vegetables, many people will go for the easier option - a food that actively lowers cholesterol, such as one of the spreads gaining growing sales in Europe, or even the new milk drink launched this month by Swiss firm Emmi.
A new study appears to confirm the benefits of such drinks. Milk drinks that contain properly solubilised non-esterified plant sterols can significantly inhibit cholesterol absorption report researchers in this month's European Journal of Nutrition.
The team from the Nestlé Research Centre in Switzerland aimed to check whether the milk fat globule membrane components in milk drinks enhanced the absorption of cholesterol and made plant sterols less efficient.
They tested the cholesterol absorption inhibiting properties of non-esterified plant sterols, 'properly solubilised', in milks made partly with vegetable oil. Sixteen hypercholesterolemic adult men consumed milk containing 1.8g of non-esterified pure plant sterols daily and control milk, alternatively, during two six-day periods in a double blind cross over design.
They found that cholesterol absorption was reduced from about 70 per cent with the control milk to 40 per cent with milks containing plant sterols.
The Emmi Benecol drink contains 2g of Raisio's cholesterol-lowering ingredient derived from plant stanols, said to lower LDL cholesterol by up to 15 per cent, and the overall cholesterol by about 10 per cent. The product is thought to be the first 'milk' to be able to lower cholesterol. Benecol does, however, differ from the sterol esters used in this study and by other firms such as Unilever in its pro.activ spread.