The best advice is to try them for yourself and see. Sterol spreads are lower in fat and higher in water than margarine so it is always a good idea to check the label to determine their best cooking use. This is the amount you would spread on 3 or 4 slices of bread. To work best, the spreads need to be eaten every day with meals, using them at least twice a day is important to obtain maximum cholesterol-lowering effects. Once you stop using them, your cholesterol will return to former levels.
Cholesterol is a fatty substance made by all animals and so is found in meat, eggs, milk and fish.
Endogenous cholesterol enters the digestive tract via bile and would normally be reabsorbed and then transported to the liver where it could be recycled. Once you start eating sterols, they reduce the absorption of all cholesterol in the digestive tract, which will include that from bile. This means that if you follow a low cholesterol diet, plant sterols have the potential to reduce your cholesterol further, by limiting the absorption of your body s own cholesterol. To date there has been no evidence to show that consuming plant sterols is not safe. The limitation to the evidence is that there's currently no research looking at their long-term consumption, the longest study having been for only 12 months.