Sugar cane extract doesn't lower cholesterol

NEW YORK (Reuters) A new study adds to growing evidence that an extract from Cuban sugarcane does not help lower cholesterol levels.

A number of plant products work well for cutting cholesterol, such as plant sterols used in margarine and other foods, Dr Peter J H Jones, Canada Research Chair in Nutrition and Functional Foods at the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, told Reuters Health. But it looks increasingly as if Cuban sugar cane ''policosanols'' are not one of these products, he said.

Jones and his colleague, Dr Amira N Kassis, had 21 healthy men and women with high cholesterol eat ten milligrams of policosanols daily or a placebo for 28 days. After an additional 28-day ''washout period,'' the study participants were switched to placebo or policosanols.

Jones and Kassis found no effect of the policosanols on any measure of participants' cholesterol.

While dozens of human and animal studies from one lab based in Cuba have shown dramatic cholesterol-lowering effects approaching those of statins for policosanols, studies done elsewhere have shown no effect, the researchers note in their report in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Proponents have suggested that perhaps only Cuban sugarcane extracts will work, but Jones and Kassis used the same type employed by the Cuban lab, as have other researchers recently, without seeing results.

It remains remotely possible that Cuban individuals have some sort of genetic difference that makes them react differently to policosanols, or that they eat so many policosanols in their normal diet that supplementation with the extract has more of an effect than it would in other people, Jones said.

The current study, Jones said, underscores the need for more scrutiny of herbal product claims. The policosanol extract, he noted, is being sold for a dollar a pill around the world.

REUTERS BDP KP0911