Aug 4, 2008 – Taking a supplement of red yeast rice every day could halve the risk of recurrence in people who have suffered a heart attack, according to a Chinese study1.
The clinical trial, which lasted over four years, followed 4,870 people aged 18 to 70 who had a myocardial infarction in the 60 months before the start of the study. Half of them took two 300 mg capsules of red yeast rice (or Xuezhikang2.3), while the others took a placebo.
Of the patients who took the supplement, 5.7% experienced a significant heart condition, fatal or not. This proportion rose to 10.4% among those who took the placebo. This represents a risk reduction of 45%.
In addition, patients who took the red yeast rice treatment had a 30% lower risk of dying from a cardiovascular event. And their risk of having heart surgery was also reduced by 30%.
The red yeast rice would have had a beneficial effect on the blood cholesterol of the participants by lowering their triglyceride and LDL cholesterol levels and by increasing the level of good cholesterol.
Researchers at Peking University have yet to elucidate the mechanism of action of red yeast rice, a food that the Chinese have consumed for millennia. The supplements contained compounds other than lovastatin – a cholesterol-lowering substance found in red yeast rice – which may also have beneficial effects on heart health, they say.
Less side effects?
Pharmacist Jean-Yves Dionne, a specialist in natural health products, said he was pleasantly surprised by the results of this study. “The research seems very solid as much by its duration, by the number of patients involved as by the very significant results”, he underlines.
Red yeast rice is interesting because it naturally contains lovastatin, an ingredient in Mevacor, a drug often used to lower blood cholesterol, explains Jean-Yves Dionne. “However, the long-term doses administered in this study are much lower than those typically used for the treatment of cardiovascular disease. The side effects of the product are thus reduced ”, he explains.
Red yeast rice is not available in pharmacies in Quebec, but it can be found in some natural product stores and on the Internet, underlines Jean-Yves Dionne. On the other hand, it warns consumers against self-treatment. In the case of cardiovascular disease, the interaction between natural products and drugs can be dangerous.
Emmanuelle Bergeron – PasseportSanté.net
1. Lu Z, Kou W, et al, Effect of xuezhikang, an extract from red yeast chinese rice, on coronary events in a chinese population with previous myocardial infarction, Am J Cardiol, June 15, 2008, vol. 101, no 12, 1689-93.
2. The red yeast rice extract used in this study was Xuezhikang (XZK), developed and patented by the Biotechnical Company Limited of Beijing WPL at Peking University.
3. The capsules contained monacolin K (2.5 to 3.2 mg / capsule), a small amount of lovastatin hydroxyl, ergosterol and other compounds.
