Invited Speaker

Cycloartenol: A New Dietary Agent with Significant Cardiovascular Benefits
Mohammed H. Moghadasian, Qilin Chen, Rgia Othman, Jitao Zou
Canada

We have extensively reported that a mixture of dietary plant sterols composing of β-sitosterol (approximately 60%), campestrol (approximately 30%) and sitostanol (approximately 10%) can significantly reduce plasma total and LDL cholesterol levels and prevents atherosclerosis in apo E-KO mice. Currently, a number of food products are enriched with the above mentioned plant sterols in free or esterified forms.

Cycloartenol is a precursor for synthesis of β-sitosterol in plants. We have tested biological effects of cycloartenol including cardiovascular risk reduction in apo E-KO mice. Our data show that cycloartenol can significantly reduce plasma total cholesterol concentrations and retards development of aortic atherosclerotic lesion development in this animal model. These effects of cycloartenol are similar to those of the conventional phytosterol mixtures as mentioned above. Furthermore, we have observed no sign or evidence for toxicity of cycloartenol over a period of six weeks. We believe that these observations are very encouraging and merit further investigation.