| Phytosterols have different forms: free phytosterols and phytosterol esters. It's possible that these different phytosterols may function in different ways. Therefore, it would be desirable to measure individual sterols as well as total phytosterols as part of nutrient composition information in food products.; Phytosterols have been studied using both gas chromatography (GC) and high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). In GC analysis which internal standard to use often is a difficult choice. Also, phytosterols are not very thermostable at the high temperature which GC analysis requires. Some studies have employed HPLC with different detectors, mobile phases, and columns, but only partial separation of phytosterols was accomplished. The original goal of this research was to develop a HPLC method to separate and identify both free phytosterols and phytosterol esters in corn completely. This objective could not be met in this research because of serious overlap of lipid components. Thus saponification was used to convert all combined sterols to free sterols in this method. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)... |
