cholesterol-lowering candy bar.

The Cardiobar, as it's called, is not on the market yet, but its inventors at the University of Massachusetts say it -- or something like it -- could have a powerful effect on people's cholesterol.

The recipe doesn't sound like anything Grandma might have thought of. Each bar contained gum from the guar plant, soy protein and a variety of rice bran oil -- ingredients thought to have a good effect on cholesterol.

Dr. Robert J. Nicolosi and colleagues worked out the ingredients and had the bars made by Ross-Abbott Labs in Columbus, Ohio, which helped pay to test them.

The bars were fed to 35 men and women whose cholesterol levels averaged a moderately elevated 263. Volunteers who ate two a day lowered their cholesterol an impressive 33 points on average.

When the bars will hit the market, and how much they will cost, are still unclear. Nicolosi was a little vague about how they taste. He said the bars come in chocolate and raspberry, but they still need work.

"If it doesn't taste good, people won't take it, no matter how healthy it is,'' he said.

*** It's just corn syrup, sugar, egg whites and a touch of vanilla -- the same ingredients that have been used for 75 years. It's just a kid food, an adult guilty pleasure, the stuff of sandwiches with peanut butter, of grandma's secret fudge recipe, of that dollop in a cup of cocoa.

Marshmallow Fluff will win no awards from the nations' gourmets -- or its nutritionists -- but it has won a sticky place in many hearts.

"It's a lifestyle, emotionally. It's a fun kind of food,'' says Don Durkee, president of Durkee-Mower Inc.

It all started when Durkee's father, H. Allen Durkee, and high school chum Fred Mower decided making lollipops and hard ribbon candies was too seasonal a business. They wanted to add a more food-like product to their repertoire, paid $500 for the recipe to a sugary concoction with potential, and started selling "Toot Sweet Marshmallow Fluff'' door to door.

"It is a fairly common recipe known to anybody in the candy making business,'' concedes Don Durkee, who started in the company's labelling room.

"The whipping and cooking time, the manipulation of the ingredients are what make it unique.'' Fluff already is sold in Australia, Brazil, Canada, England, France, Germany, Holland, Israel and South Africa.

It is particularly popular in the United Kingdom, where it has been sold since 1991 as "The Incredible American Marshmallow Spread.'' EDIBLES