Commentary on Men's Journal June 2013 Article Part 3

So where were we?  Ah yes!  Discussing the June 2013 issue of Men's Journal, specifically their "New Guide to Heart Health" article.  The section on "Food for Your Heart", the author recommends red yeast rice even after acknowledging it as the precursor to present day statins.  Granted it's not required to be manufactured to Food & Drug Administration standards, but why take something in which the active ingredient is actually considered a prescription medication but can vary in strength by 100 fold?

Current standard is to recommend a goal LDL-cholesterol of less than 100mg/dL if your risk of heart disease is greater than 20%.  Depending upon how much you need to drop your LDL, you could potentially opt for lifestyle modification.  However, if despite your best efforts, your LDL hasn't reached your goal, perhaps you could then consider a statin.  Consumer Reports suggests choosing either lovastatin or pravastatin if you need to drop your LDL by less than 30%.  Better yet, these drugs are typically available for $4/mo or $10/3mo.  If you need to drop your LDL by more than 30%. consider either simvastatin or atorvastatin.  But there's really no reason to pay $500/mo for a brand name statin, so why succumb to scare tactics as mentioned in the article?

Bottom line: if you're trying to choose the best medication, find one w/clinical outcome benefit.  Don't settle for one that just improves numbers; instead, find one that has demonstrated ability to lower all-cause mortality.  Remember that you want to do more than lower cholesterol: you want to avoid heart attack & stroke.  If you're going to take a statin, be sure you get one covered/paid for by your insurance company.  Then make sure you can tolerate the formulation w/o muscle aches.

And by the way, unlike the author, don't bother w/inositol hexaniacinate.  Real niacin (nicotinic acid) is converted in the body into niacinamide.  It's this conversion process that leads to flushing and improved cholesterol numbers.  By avoiding the flushing with these other "niacin", you also lose any purported cholesterol benefit, if any.  And remember that a recent study demonstrated no benefit whatsoever from niacin.

Part 2: http://alvinblin.blogspot.com/2013/05/commentary-on-mens-health-june-2013_14.html

Part 1: http://alvinblin.blogspot.com/2013/05/commentary-on-mens-health-june-2013.html

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