Researchers find way to produce cholesterol-lowering snack chips

Snackaholics rejoice!, Brandeis University biology professor K.C. Hayes and Senior Research Associate Andy Pronczuk at the school's Foster Biomedical Research Laboratory, and Senior Scientist Daniel Perlman in the Physics Department have discovered a way to produce chips and other snack foods that can actually lower your cholesterol while you eat them - without having any impact on taste.

"This could have a major impact on public health," said Hayes, who has studied the effect of dietary fats on cholesterol for 35 years. He has previously collaborated with Dr. Perlman in creating and patenting the fat blend in Smart Balance, a trans-fat free margarine.

The Brandeis research team found that soybean-derived phytosterols (natural sterols that occur in plants) helped block cholesterol uptake (present in animal fat). When added to the cooking oil used to prepare snack chips and other foods, these natural sterols lowered LDL (the so-called "bad" cholesterol).

In a clinical study chronicled in the American Society for Nutritional Sciences' Journal of Nutrition, the Hayes team followed 10 subjects who achieved a 15 percent decrease in their LDL cholesterol and a 10 percent drop in total cholesterol after eating two one-ounce servings of phytosterol-enriched tortilla chips each day over a four-week period. "If you have a really high cholesterol, LDL would likely decline even more," Hayes said.

While the health benefits of phytosterols have been known for years - both the National Cholesterol Education Program and American Heart Association have recommended the addition of phytosterols to the diet to help reduce cholesterol - their use in everyday foods has been limited to margarines and salad oils, largely for technical reasons of incorporation.

Researchers had failed previously to develop a method to add phytosterols to frying oil to extend their benefit to fried foods products, but the Hayes research team discovered that fat-borne phytosterols, after adequate heating and then cooling, recrystallize in a form that effectively blocks cholesterol absorption. Commercial applications of the research are being protected by patent applications filed by the University.

In fact, the team's study revealed that the benefits of phytosterols in tortilla chips was similar to or even slightly better than that observed when phytosterols were provided in the dietary fat directly.

"Phytosterols block cholesterol uptake as you eat foods containing cholesterol," Hayes said. "When you're consuming cholesterol is when you want to eat the phytosterols."

The benefits of phytosterols could be expanded beyond snack foods, such as French fries and chips, to include breads and cake mixes, according to Hayes.