Mainstream admits power of red yeast rice
Just as the mainstream is pushing statins for even healthy people, good news comes from an unlikely source. Red yeast rice continues to show its power, and it's getting harder to ignore.
Sometimes, good news comes from surprising places. This time, it's a small beam of support for alternative medicine from a very mainstream source.
In a video from Medscape (a very conventional online news source for doctors), Dr. Sandra Fryhofer pays the mildest of lip service to the dangers of statins before giving a reluctant report of an alternative.
She calls it statin-associated myalgia, or SAM--because what mainstream news outlet wants to come right out and admit to the debilitating muscle pain and weakness that statins can cause?
The report also becomes a test in how many times one person can say the phrase "some patients."
"Some patients" are "bothered" by statin side effects. "Some patients" experience statin-associated myalgias. "Some patients" are seeking an alternative. Say it enough, and "some patients" starts to sound like some foreign group, completely outside all of the normal, statin-loving people.
But we know better than that.
The study--published in the Annals of Internal Medicine-- had 62 patients who'd quit taking statins because of terrible pain on 3 600 mg capsules of red yeast rice or placebo 2 times a day for 26 weeks. Both groups also made lifestyle changes, incorporating diet and exercise plans, yoga, and massage. (Sounds pretty nice to me!)
You can tell she doesn't want to admit it--in fact, she offers a slew of caveats you just don't see when the media fawns over the latest Big Pharma poison--but she has to.
The red yeast rice worked, bringing on a 35-point drop in LDL cholesterol. The group on placebo (but who still made lifestyle changes) saw a 15-point drop.
The doctor is critical, calling the study small and saying red yeast rice "seemed to help." She even speculates that, because red yeast rice has the same basic action as statins, maybe the dose of red yeast rice is just too small to cause unwanted side effects.
No unwanted side effects, and it still works? Sold!
This news couldn't come at a better time, with the FDA showing its support for statin use to prevent heart attacks in healthy people. That's right--the very thing we at Nutrition & Healing have been cautioning against is coming true: Statins for everyone!
One doctor called the FDA advisory panel's recommendation for Crestor use in healthy people "courageous." I call it something else…but I can't write that word here.
Sources:
"Red Yeast Rice -- Is This a Substitute for People Who Can't Take Statins?," Medscape (www.medscape.com).
"FDA Panel Recommends Crestor to Prevent Heart Attacks in Healthy People," ABC News (abcnews.go.com).
Printer-friendly versionAbout the author
Christine O'Brien writes the e-letter Health eTips for Dr. Wright's Nutrition and Healing.
You can sign up for the free eTips at www.wrightnewsletter.com.
Email this Article
Comments
World Vitamins Online
The FDA should be ashamed of themselves for letting their opinions be governed by drug money. They have reduced themselves to a useless entity and most people that do not work at the FDA are aware of this.
Anonymous
I take red rice yeast but it is stii a statin. Bill O'Reilly on his TV show announced that his liver enzymes went sky hugh on it and he supportrd McCain's bill to have the FDA start having supplements scutinized
Anonymous
Red yeast rice does the job, and also stating drugs does its job but when it comes to compound drugs it gives me the willies, we are going against a cholesterol building organ one that has over 300 functions, do we really need to reduce cholesterol that much?, or maybe the guidelines were changed to accommodate a few chosen pillars of the community to line their pockets with a few billion $$$$, again folks you know what a big lollypop represents on top of our heads. JAM
Post new comment