摘要：Functional foods, have been consumed in many developed countries for years, were started to produced and consumed in Turkey after the legal regulations in 2005. Functional foods contain one or several various bioactive factors. Phytosterols are important bioactive compounds that accepted as an ingredient of functional food. These compounds are absorbed from the intestinal system similarities to cholesterol and show their bio-activities in the serum. The main health benefits of phytosterols are to reduce the heart attack risk via lowering serum cholesterol levels and to prevent the some of cancer types due to the anticarsinogenic activities. Addition of fatty acid ester forms of phytosterols to foods and their consumption increases the mentioned effects of them, instead of consumption of phytosterols as a dietary supplement directly. In this review, chemical structure, health benefit effects, content in foods, production and addition to foods of phytosterols are reviewed.
