ZEN FUTURE

/////////////////////////“The future is always beginning now.” ~Mark Strand


///////////////////////“Beware the barrenness of a busy life.” ~Socrates


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////////////////////////Dr J. Plat and colleagues at Maastricht University’s Department of Human Biology in the Netherlands, say that these plant sterols may actually be more important in heart disease than cholesterol.¹ Because plant sterols are structurally related to cholesterol, Plat and colleagues examined whether oxidized plant sterols (oxyphytosterols) could be identified in human blood and soy-based fat emulsions. They could. Approximately 1.4% of the plant sterol, sitosterol, in blood was oxidized. This may not seem very much, but it is 140 times as much as the 0.01% oxidatively modified cholesterol normally seen in human blood. The same was also found in two soy emulsions.² Research published in 2008, on both humans and animals, suggested that ‘functional foods’ aimed atlowering cholesterol may actually increase the risk of a heart attack.³