IT COULD one day be possible to lower your blood cholesterol level by taking
a drug that stops it being absorbed by the gut.
Samuel Wright and his colleagues at Merck Research Laboratories in New Jersey
have found that, in hamsters, a single molecule of a sterol glycoside can block
the absorption of up to 500 molecules of cholesterol. This shows that intestinal
cells use a specific transporter to take in cholesterol (Biochimica et
Biophysica Acta, vol 1436, p 232 and p 243). Because most cholesterol is
made in our livers, eating less cholesterol doesn’t lower blood levels much.…
