Jornal de Distúrbios Alimentares e Nutricionais

Screening of Staple Food Crops for their Phytosterol and Nutritional Contents to Determine their Hyperlipidemia Controlling Potential

Anam Yousaf, Abdul Qadir, Tehmina Anjum and Aqeel Ahmad

Screening of Staple Food Crops for their Phytosterol and Nutritional Contents to Determine their Hyperlipidemia Controlling Potential

Phytosterol rich food uptake is a key factor in controlling hyperlipidemia. This goal can be achieved by screening staple foods for their phytosterol contents along other nutritional facts. Therefore, seven staple food crops (i.e. wheat, kabuli chickpea, desi chickpea, barley, rice, corn and millet) were evaluated for their dietary benefits, with a special focus on phytosterol contents. Plants were tested for their nutritional and palatability components through organic extraction and calorimetric methods. Moreover, isozyme analysis of Oxidosqualene Cyclase was performed through Native Polyacrylamide Gel Electrophoresis. Data were analysed through MYSTAT (Kroeger, Chicago, USA) and GELANALYZER (Lazar, Hungry). It was recorded that barley (Malt) had maximum phytosterol contents (0.239 g/ kg), which can be potentially used for control of hyperlipidemia. Corn was the most palatable and safest food crop due to its biochemical combination related to palatability. Vitamin analysis revealed that barley was rich in all tested water soluble vitamin contents except Folic acid; which was the highest in corn (0.006 g/ kg). Moreover, barley exhibited maximum number of isozymes for oxidosqualene cyclase (OSC). Other crops had variable number of isozymes for OSC, but lesser than barley. Current investigation is highly important in relation to population health management. It recommends barley as a recommended staple food crop for control of hyperlipidemia.