I know several people who take red yeast rice as a dietary supplement, to aid in the control of high cholesterol and high blood pressure. However, it may also be dangerous if mishandled, as this report out of Japan demonstrates.
A major Japanese drugmaker has said it is investigating a death and dozens of hospitalisations that could be linked to its red yeast rice pills.
At least 76 people were admitted to hospital after taking the beni kōji fermented rice products, the firm says.
Kobayashi Pharmaceutical ... said it suspected that the problem may have come from previously undetected toxic substances in moulds used in production.
. . .
Affected customers had reported symptoms such as changes in the colour of urine, swelling in their limbs and fatigue.
There's more at the link.
Red yeast rice is also used as a coloring agent in some foods; therefore, even if you don't take it in "raw" form as a dietary supplement, you may still be at risk.
This illustrates yet again that unregulated dietary supplements may be hazardous to your health. Sure, there are hundreds, probably thousands of them out there, and most of them won't cause any problems at all. Nevertheless, every now and then, a problem arises, often because such supplements aren't as tightly regulated or supervised as medicines. By the time it's identified and localized, it may be too late for some of those affected by it.
This is a particular problem in terms of interaction with some prescription medications. I'm on several prescriptions, and I have to be careful to avoid certain foods (and certain dietary supplements) that are known to reduce the effect of those medications, or even negate it altogether. I daresay many of my readers are in the same boat.
Peter
6 comments:
I think I recall you mentioning some health problems. I strongly urge you to check out Jason Fun and Diabetes on youtube. It's curable without drugs. Also, check out the Fasting vid. I'm going to start it soon. (No, I am not affiliated; just trying to get out the info).
Kelly
If you're in the US, and taking Red Yeast supplements to affect your cholesterol, you're probably wasting your money.
Source:
"Traditional red yeast rice may contain trace amounts of monacolin K (lovastatin).
Some commercial red yeast rice products contain very little or no detectable monacolin K. Other products, however, have been found to contain large amounts of monacolin K. Some researchers reported that commercial lovastatin is illegally added to some red yeast rice products.
It’s impossible for consumers to know the amount of monacolin K in red yeast rice products. Levels of monacolin K and lovastatin are not usually included on product labels. A 2017 review analyzed 28 brands of red yeast rice products from mainstream retailers in the United States, and none of the products included the quantity of monacolin K on the label. Monacolin K was not detected in two brands, and in the 26 brands that contained monacolin K, the quantity ranged more than 60-fold, from 0.09 to 5.48 mg per 1,200 mg of red yeast rice."
Clinical dosage of lovastatin is 10-80 mg per day in maintenance.
My doctor told me to take red yeast rice, after I declined his offer of statins.
When I did my research, I realized that RYR is just a back-door statin, with all the possible side-effects and damage. Some articles even claim that early statins were isolated from similar compounds.
No thanks.
I almost started taking it as well on the general advice of my doctor. I'd never heard of it before but she mentioned it as an alternative to statins . But upon further research I felt the same - no thanks.
Thank you Peter for the additional info
This is interesting. From the linked article:
"Kobayashi said it suspected that the problem may have come from previously undetected toxic substances in moulds used in production."
I'm reminded of the Showa Denko L-tryptophan issue from the late 1980s. From what I can tell searching on the net, they had various theories about what caused the eosinophilia–myalgia syndrome seen in people who had taken SD's L-tryptophan (including toxic substances introduced by the manufacturing process) but nobody's ever been able to confirm or refute the actual cause of EMS in these cases.
==Dwight
A minor correction to the first comment, signed by Kelly but tagged anonymous.
It's Dr. Jason Fung, a Canadian nephrologist.
https://www.doctorjasonfung.com/
He's one of the group of MDs who demonstrated reversing diabetes with a ketogenic diet, and the first advocate of regular fasting that I ever heard of. The fact that a kidney specialist was getting people's diabetes reversed with a keto diet, that the vegans are screaming will hurt your kidneys, is further evidence conventional wisdom isn't wisdom.
I'm the only one in my family who hasn't developed diabetes which I attribute to ketogenic and nearly keto since 1997, as well as following his advice. My older brother, diagnosed type 2 and on insulin reversed it and got off his insulin by going keto.
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