Is red yeast rice a good alternative to statins?

Red yeast rice is a great natural alternative to statin drugs for lowering cholesterol, especially if you get muscle pain from statins. Watch as integrative medicine expert Julie Chen, MD, discusses the benefits and warnings for this supplement.

Transcript

00:00

With dietary change at my own personal clinic, I've definitely seen a lot of improvement with cholesterol, with just even within two to three months

00:07

of starting the red yeast rice. [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:15

Red yeast rice is a great alternative to statins, primarily because the active ingredient in red yeast rice and with statins are similar.

00:23

So they have actually done studies where it looks like the bad cholesterol, which is the LDL, will go down by 22% with red yeast rice.

00:32

With dietary change at my own personal clinic, I've definitely seen a lot of improvement with cholesterol, with just even within two to three months

00:39

of starting the red yeast rice. What's important about that is you always want to make a dietary change with that. You don't want to continue with the root of the problem

00:47

and just take medications or supplements on top of that. But red yeast rice is a great option, primarily because also it causes,

00:53

in my clinical experience, a lot less of the muscle aches and pains that statins might. Red yeast rice, the dosing that you want to use

01:00

is 1,200 to 2,400 milligrams. You don't want to do much higher. Don't think that a little is good, so a lot is better.

01:09

Primarily, because as you start to get higher dosages, because they are similar compounds in the red yeast rice and the statins, you might start

01:16

to get more muscle issues from the red yeast rice, and we don't want that. So make sure you're checking your labs. You want to check your cholesterol labs prior

01:23

to starting the red yeast rice, and then you want to check it every three months to see where your levels are. And go with the lower dosing that will get you the desired effect.

01:30

And you also might want to get your liver and your muscle enzyme, which is called creatine kinase, levels checked regularly to make sure

01:37

that you're doing fine with it. But typically, that's not been as much of an issue as compared to my patients who have taken the prescription

01:43

drugs. [AUDIO LOGO]