Sterol Digestion in Plant Sterol-Enriched Foods: Bioaccessibility and Fermentation

Plant sterol-enriched foods have proved to lower serum total and low-density lipoproteins-cholesterol concentration, so they have faced a great increase in the market over the past 20 years through accepted health claims. This chapter provides an overall and critical picture on the current knowledge and future perspectives regarding bioaccessibility and fermentation of sterols contained in plant sterol-enriched food products, particularly focused on the effect of food matrix composition, as well as different in vitro gastrointestinal digestion methodologies, and the role of microbiota in the sterol degradation. The final objective of this chapter is to evince the different aspects of the digestion and fermentation of plant sterol-enriched foods that require further research in order to improve the development of these functional foods and take advantage of their benefits.