Red Yeast Rice Complications Controversy
Red Yeast Rice – The new study about Red Yeast Rice, from physicians in Pennsylvania and reported in the June 16 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine, found a significant cholesterol-lowering effect of a commercially available nonprescription red yeast rice product in a small group of such people.
But it was a small study about Red Yeast Rice, and “much more testing needs to be done in many more people for a longer time period and running controversy about the purported cholesterol-lowering effects of the centuries-old natural product called red yeast rice.
Red yeast rice has been used in Asian countries for more than a thousand years as food and medicine. In the United States and Europe, Red yeast rice has been proposed as an alternative cholesterol-lowering treatment for people who cannot take statins because of severe side effects, mainly muscle wasting and weakness.
Red yeast rice is under a regulatory cloud at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration because it contains a natural statin, lovastatin, sold as a prescription drug named Mevacor.
FDA moved against several red yeast rice products — not the one used in the Pennsylvania study — on the grounds that they were unlicensed pharmaceuticals, a move which was upheld after a court tussle. via forbes.com
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