A Substitute for Those Who Can't Take Statins?

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The product used in the study does contain lovastatin, Gordon said, but not enough to explain the reduction seen in the trial. Trial participants took three 600-milligram vials of red yeast rice twice a day.

"Each vial had one milligram of lovastatin. So the total was six milligrams a day, which is really a tiny amount," Gordon said. "And lovastatin is one of the weaker statins. The cholesterol drop was much more than what you'd expect from that low dose of lovastatin."

Some statin-related side effects, such as muscle pain and liver problems, were reported in the study, by two people who took red yeast rice and one who took the inactive substance, but they were not severe, Gordon said.

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The beneficial effect might be due to compounds related to lovastatin, one of whose many designations is monacolin K. There are "nine or 10" other monacolins in red yeast rice, "and our theory is that these other monacolins affect cholesterol production in the liver," Gordon said.

The hopeful aspect of the study is that "we may actually have found a product that may be useful for patients and clinicians to deal with this problem, statin myalgia [muscle pain]," he said.

But it was a small study, and "much more testing needs to be done in many more people for a longer time period," Gordon said. And taking red yeast rice "absolutely should not be done without a physician's consent, and because it contains a small amount of a statin, you should be tested for liver problems," he said.

There are potential perils in taking red yeast rice because the marketed products are essentially unregulated, as illustrated by the research group's experience after a similar study, which got similar results, that they did last year.

That study used a different unregulated red yeast rice product. After the study was completed, the manufacturer changed the product formula, eliminating the lovastatin content and substituting ordinary sugar, Gordon said.

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