Phytosterols in plant foods: Exploring contents, data distribution and aggregated values using an online bioactives database

Information on the levels of plant-based bioactive compounds and their biological activity is broadly dispersed in the literature, and currently there is no central source of such data which can be used for scientific purposes such as biodiversity assessments, intake studies or for supporting health claims. A unique online database (EuroFIR-BASIS) has been developed to facilitate easy sourcing and analysis of extensive compositional and biological activity data for bioactive compounds. We extracted and interrogated the compositional information for one class of bioactives, the phytosterols (PS). Two types of data were extracted: (i) descriptive information for foods containing PS (e.g. levels and patterns of individual PS, distribution in food plants, variation within the plant/plant organs); and (ii) extended data sets which allowed statistical analysis of the data. The data closely followed a normal distribution for many plant/plant part/individual PS combinations, and facilitated the identification of outliers in the data sets which may have distorted any derived 'typical' values. Both of these approaches demonstrate the power of the EuroFIR BASIS database in bringing together compositional data for this class of bioactive compounds, which can equally be applied to any of the 16 compound classes currently covered in the database.