Talk:Phytosterol

message: Now that Bayer has started to sell low-dose aspirin coated with phytosterols and making health claims, there should be something in the article about this.  And, are all forms sold for human consumption plant-derived, or are some chemically synthesized?    First, Bayer got a cease-and-desist from the FDA in 2008 for combining a drug (aspirin) with a dietary supplement (phytosterols/stanols). Second, they are plant-derived, either from soy or from tall oil, or other sources. 
-69.87.203.38 (talk) 20:53, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  aspirin coating 

message: This is a good article overall, and I assessed it as C-class due to a number of minor problems related to references. 
* There is at least one section without a reference. 
* There is at least one reference that's a bare url. Quotes need references. 
* And last, instead of a reference, a quote in the "Health Canada" section is followed by: This statement when used, shall be shown in letters up to the same size and prominence as those of the primary statement. I don't want to speculate what it means, but it should be removed, and the text should be scanned for any similar errors.
Good luck. Boneyard90 (talk) 11:44, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  WP: Food & Drink Assessment Commentary 

message: After reading this and related articles, I am struck by the following facts: (1) Chemically, phytosterols are very similar to cholesterol. (2) Phytosterols play the same role in plants as cholesterol does in animals. (3) In the intestine, phytosterols are absorbed in the same way as cholesterol, and compete with cholesterol, so that eating large amounts of phytosterols reduces the amount of cholesterol that the body will absorb from food.
This leads me to speculate that phytosterols behave like cholesterol in the human body. If you eat very large amounts of phytosterols will it replace some of the cholesterol in cell membranes? Or will the cells see phytosterols as imperfect or damaged cholesterol and destroy it, or refuse to take it from the blood?
If you eat large amounts of phytosterols it seems to me that it will replace some of the cholesterol in LDL and HDL in the blood. In this way measurements of cholesterol in the serum will show reduced levels (assuming the assays will not confuse phytosterols and cholesterol). On the other hand, LDL-phytosterol could be just as dangerous as LDL-cholesterol in causing artery disease. This would explain experimental results as they stand now.
Note that this does not even qualify as WP:OR -- it is pure guess work. I was wondering if any research looked at it this way or addressed these points in their conclusions. --  Solo Owl   13:51, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Behavior of plant sterols in animals 

message: Contributed on 4-16-15 by GGT (talk); removed per WP:NOTJOURNAL
:The exact mechanism through which phytosterols lower blood cholesterol levels is not known, and several hypotheses have been put forward. These include proposals that they compete with cholestrol for micellar solubility and displace it from bile salt micelles, that they crystallize together with cholesterol to form mixed insoluble crystals, that they interfere with the hydrolysis by cholesterol esterases and lipases to produce cholesterol and that they induce the secretion of cholesterol from blood vessels into the intestinal lumen to result in an increased sterol content in feces.
--Zefr (talk) 00:24, 17 April 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Although the exact mechanism by which phytosterols lower blood cholesterol levels is not known, several hypotheses have been developed, including
* preventing cholesterol from dissolving, facilitating its metabolism or excretion
* forming insoluble crystals which are inhibited from entering the circulation
* inhibiting cholesterol-forming enzymes, namely cholesterol esterases and lipases
* promoting secretion of cholesterol from the blood vessels into the intestine where it is eventually excreted (GGT note: check on this one, as it sounds dubious)
--GGT (talk) 13:02, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: GGT -- perhaps bullets, with other copyedits and the respective references back in place? --Zefr (talk) 14:17, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Mechanisms of cholesterol lowering

message: In this edit (→‎Cancer risk: rv as WP:PRIMARY, not WP:MEDRS), content supported by a review was deleted. The source meets WP:MEDRS and its current impact factor is 2.14. Added back. 
Interestingly, a later edit let content supported by a primary source... Replaced with a systematic review. --BallenaBlanca (talk) 20:42, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Fixed again  --BallenaBlanca (talk) 13:22, 22 September 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deleted content  

message: References 2 & 19 (Weingartner 22008 and Genser 2012) are cited as references that phytosterol treatment lowers cholesterol and LDL-chol, but has no impact on coronary heart disease. What these refs actually address is two sides of the debate as to whether phytosterols are atherogenic. What is presented is evidence that higher plasma phytosterols increase risk, or not. As to why there is not any reporting on the clinical consequences of phytosterol treatment, my guess is that the clinical trials are too short and too small to be a true test of cardio outcome. Instead, the trials were almost all designed to confirm lipid lowering and stop with that. David notMD (talk) 02:53, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Not NPOV?