Risks of Red Yeast Rice

Red Yeast Rice Extract

Risks of red yeast rice...

Red yeast rice extract was originally sold in a product that went by the name "Cholestin." However, in 2001 the FDA withdrew the product from the market.

Despite this withdrawal, however, red yeast rice is still being sold on the Internet by various marketers. Undoubtedly, many people still take it in some form and want to know does red rice yeast have any side effects?

The answer is yes. We'll explain why, after giving a brief background on it.

Red Yeast Rice Extract

If you are familar with cholesterol lowering medications, you will know that they are all collectively called statin drugs. For example, Pfizer's Lipitor, Merck's Zocor are two statin drugs.

Red yeast rice extract yielded a compound almost identical to lovastatin, which is the key ingredient in the statin drug Mevacor.

Due to this, the FDA claimed it should be regulated because it was essentially no different than Mevacor, the prescription lowering drug and, therefore may exhibit the same side effects.

Risks of Red Yeast Rice

2400 mg of red yeast rice extract provides about 10 mg of active statin.

Some of the risks and possible serious side effects include: it may also cause elevated liver enzymes and muscle wasting (rhabdomyolysis). These side effects can be serious to the point of life threatening.

Red yeast rice extract does work to lower cholesterol, but there are other natural substances that work too. And these other substances do not have the same risks of red yeast rice.

For example, policonsanol is a natural extract of sugar cane that has been shown in numerous clinical studies to lower LDL cholesterol.

Guggulipid extract is also another herb that has been used in India's Ayurvedic medicine for thousands of years to treat high cholesterol.

One of the best cholesterol reducing formulas we have found is produced by Xtend-Life Natural Products, and contains both policosanol and guggulipid (in addition to many other proven cholesterol lowering nutrients).

We here at Nutritional Supplement Info personally use Xtend-Life products ourselves and have been very pleased with the results.

After having taken dozens of different brands over the years and researching supplements in depth, we believe they are among the best on the market.

If you want a natural, safe way to lower your cholesterol, you may want to have a look at Xtend-Life's Natural Cholesterol Formula.