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Super Foods: Able to Leap Broccoli in a Single Bound?

Jan. 7, 2002 -- "Functional" or "super" foods are finding their way onto supermarket shelves in Japan, Europe, and the United States. In addition to cholesterol-lowering margarines, you can buy chicken soup to strengthen the immune system, cancer-thwarting broccoli, and smoothies and potato chips that supposedly have calming effects.

Although the definition is ever-evolving and many regulatory hurdles need to be cleared, functional foods are foods that provide health benefits beyond basic nutrition. The Institute of Medicine defines functional foods as foods in which one or more ingredients have been manipulated to enhance their contributions to a healthy diet.

A Finnish research team found that when children aged 3-13 with a genetic condition that causes severe elevations in cholesterol levels consumed the special margarine three times a day for three months, their LDL, or "bad," cholesterol levels fell by 18%. The margarine contains stanol esters, which reduce blood cholesterol levels by blocking the absorption of cholesterol.

However, only one child's cholesterol level fell into the normal range, the study showed. Their findings are available in the February 2000 issue of Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology: Journal of the American Heart Association.

The disorder, known as familial hypercholesterolemia (FH), affects one in 500 people. People born with the gene have difficulty ridding the blood of LDL cholesterol. Two-thirds of men born with the gene will develop heart disease between the ages of 40 and 60. But among people who inherit two genes for the condition, cholesterol levels can get so high that heart attack may occur before age 20.

"Among children, stanol ester spread offers an effective and safe way to lower LDL cholesterol without side effects," lead researcher Alpo F. Vuorio, MD, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Helsinki in Finland, tells WebMD.

The margarine spread should be used only under the guidance of a doctor, he notes.

Alice Lichtenstein, DSC, professor of nutrition at Tufts University in Boston and an American Heart Association spokesperson, agrees. "The use of this margarine should be restricted to people with elevated cholesterol levels. Some people misunderstand the appropriate use of these products and think they will prevent high cholesterol, but their use is in treating established high cholesterol" with other drug and non-drug treatments.

The lessons learned from cholesterol-lowering margarine can be applied to other functional foods as well.

"In one sense, there is a lot of potential for altering diet with functional foods, but there is also the potential for these products to be misused," she says.

"The most important message for the consumer is to eat a sound, balanced diet. If they want to try functional foods, then try them, but there's no magic bullet out there," Ruth Kava, PhD, RD, director of nutrition at the American Council on Science and Health, tells WebMD.