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Rebecca Voelker

JAMA. 1998;279:101.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Alongside the statin drugs used to lower serum cholesterol comes an agent with new therapeutic potential: margarine.

In the December 16 Circulation, researchers from the University of Helsinki in Finland reported that margarine containing sitostanol ester effectively blocked cholesterol absorption and reduced levels of serum cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol in a group of postmenopausal women with previous myocardial infarction.

The 32 women in the study already were consuming a cholesterol-lowering diet. However, 22 women who had not had previous hypolipidemic treatment ate a diet for 7 weeks that contained 3 g daily of rapeseed oil margarine that contained sitostanol ester. For another 7 weeks they consumed a similar diet, but with rapeseed oil margarine that did not contain sitostanol ester. The remaining 10 women were taking the cholesterol-lowering drug simvastatin. They ate diets containing the sitostanol margarine for 12 weeks.

Researchers reported that in the . . . [Full Text of this Article]