Benecol
This article was originally published in The Tan Sheet
Executive Summary
Three or more daily servings of McNeil Consumer Healthcare's plant stanol product resulted in an average 14% reduction in cholesterol among 14 people participating in a five-week program. Conducted by Mayo Clinic researchers and reported at the American College of Cardiology Scientific Session 2000 in Anaheim, Calif. March 12-15, the cholesterol-reduction challenge involved 46 parents of a class of fifth grade students in Minnesota. Twenty men and women who used at least two-and-a-half servings of Benecol per day saw an average drop in cholesterol of 31.7 mg/dl. Based on a multivariate analysis, Benecol intake was the only variable to correlate "significantly" with a reduction in total serum cholesterol. "If a 1% decline in cholesterol translates into a 2% decline in risk of heart disease, the average participant in this trial experienced a decline in risk [greater than] 17%," the researchers estimate