Active Ingredients
Benecol is the brand name of a margarine-type spread and a line of chew candies that were specifically developed to help lower blood cholesterol levels. The active ingredients in Benecol products are plant stanols, substances found in very small amounts in fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, grains, legumes and vegetable oils that are known to reduce cholesterol.
Because the amount of stanols that can be derived from the diet is limited, food scientists developed a method to extract these compounds and combine them with oils to form plant stanol esters. These esters are then blended with other ingredients to create Benecol’s line of cholesterol-lowering food products.
Cholesterol Removal
Cholesterol is produced by the liver and supplied by some of the food we eat. All animal foods--meat, poultry, fish, dairy products and eggs--contain some cholesterol. Normally, about half of all the cholesterol that passes through the digestive system is absorbed into the intestinal wall and from there, it goes into the bloodstream. When plant stanol esters are present, they are incorporated into this digestive process.
As food and other substances move from the stomach to the intestine, bile salts produced by the gallbladder help separate plant stanol esters into stanols and fatty acids. In the process, compounds known as micelles that contain a mix of these substances are formed. Micelles move through the intestinal tract, are absorbed into the intestinal wall and eventually move into the bloodstream. Any cholesterol that is incorporated into micelles moves into the intestinal wall, too. When plant stanols are present, however, some of the cholesterol is pushed back into the intestine and goes on to be eliminated from the body. This is one way Benecol removes cholesterol from the body.
At the same that some cholesterol is moving into the intestinal wall, Benecol’s plant sterols are attaching themselves to any cholesterol remaining in the intestine. Any cholesterol attached to a stanol in this fashion never enters the intestinal wall. Instead, this cholesterol is directly eliminated from the body, along with the stanol. This is the other way Benecol works to eliminate cholesterol.
Results
When Benecol’s plant stanols are present, only up to about 20 percent of the cholesterol traveling through the intestine is absorbed--and therefore the levels of cholesterol in the blood are reduced. A study published in a 1999 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition showed that when people with high cholesterol follow a low-fat, low-cholesterol diet, plant stanol margarine lowers cholesterol even further than with diet alone. This led researchers to conclude that plant stanols block the absorption of both dietary cholesterol and cholesterol produced by the liver. When Benecol is used as an adjunct to cholesterol-lowering medication, there is even more of a drop in blood cholesterol levels.
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