Beta-Sitosterol 400mg

Description

Beta-sitosterol 400mg a capsule, 60 servings, about 40 cents each. This is the isolated plant sterol at a stated weight, not a saw palmetto oil that happens to contain a little of it, and that distinction is the reason the product exists. A beta-sitosterol 400mg capsule tells you exactly how much sterol you are taking. A 320 mg saw palmetto extract does not, because its sterol fraction is a minor constituent nobody quantifies on the front label.

What is in the capsule

Where beta-sitosterol 400mg sits against the studied amounts

This is the honest comparison and it cuts both ways. The clinical trials that used isolated beta-sitosterol administered far less than 400 mg a day, generally 60 to 130 mg, often as 20 mg three times daily, and the endpoints they measured were urinary flow rates and symptom score questionnaires. The other body of literature, on blood lipid measurements, used plant sterols and stanols at 1.5 to 3 grams a day, usually delivered in fortified spreads rather than capsules.

So 400 mg is several times the amount used in the first set of trials and a small fraction of the second. Both statements describe published research and its doses. Neither is a claim about this product. We print the comparison because a shopper who has read one of those literatures and not the other will otherwise draw the wrong conclusion from the number on the bottle.

Beta-sitosterol 400mg against a mixed sterol blend

Phytosterol products come two ways. One states a single compound at a single weight, as a beta-sitosterol 400mg capsule does. The other lists mixed plant sterols at a combined total, in which beta-sitosterol, campesterol and stigmasterol share the number in proportions the label does not give. A 400 mg mixed sterol capsule might hold 200 mg of beta-sitosterol or 320 mg, and there is no way to tell from the panel. That is the same arithmetic problem described in what a blend is allowed to leave out.

Where the sterol in beta-sitosterol 400mg comes from

Commercial phytosterols are isolated either from tall oil, a by product of pine pulping, or from soybean oil. Both routes yield a purified sterol with no protein left in it, and the source is stated on the certificate. Anyone with a severe soy allergy should still read that line rather than assume, which is the general rule we apply to every allergen derived ingredient on the site.

Why isolation matters on a label

Phytosterols occur across the plant kingdom in small amounts, so almost any botanical oil contains some. A label that mentions sterols without quantifying them is describing chemistry, not content. Isolating the compound allows a milligram figure that an assay can confirm, which is the same reason the men’s page quotes saw palmetto by its fatty acid percentage and pygeum by its total sterol percentage rather than by extract weight alone. The same logic puts the elemental figure first on every mineral listing, because a compound weight flatters a label and tells you less.

Testing

Every lot of beta-sitosterol 400mg goes to an independent laboratory, which confirms identity and measures sterol content, with heavy metals, residual solvents and microbials on the same certificate. Lots under their printed amount are withdrawn from sale and the failing report stays public, since a result that only gets published when it is flattering is not a result. The certificate guide explains which lines to read first.

For intake references and a free summary of how federal reviewers handle compounds without an established requirement, the NIH Office of Dietary Supplements fact sheet library is the place to start. The beta-sitosterol 400mg certificate for your bottle is linked on this page and archived with every other one on lab results.