Determination of the sterol composition of diets used in dietary management of hyperlipoproteinemia.

A simplified rapid quantitative method for determination of sterols in food is described. The lipids were extracted in chloroform-methanol and saponified. The unpolar components, containing the sterols, were extracted with petroleum-ether (PE) and prepared for the gas liquid chromatography (GLC). Progesterone (4-pregnene-3, 20-dione) was used as an internal standard for the GLC analysis. The recovery of the procedure was studied by adding cholesterol-7-alpha-3H before extracting the lipids. Average recovery of the method was 87.4 +/- 8.5%. The analytical errors for determination of the sterol content of three different diets were 10, 20, 25 and 15% for cholesterol, campesterol, stigmasterol and beta-sitosterol respectively.