Red yeast rice has benefits, drawbacks

QUESTION: In your column on lowering cholesterol without drugs, you did not mention red yeast rice.

[Cynthg]

I have not been able to find any mention of niacin in your column on lowering cholesterol without drugs. While niacin, I suppose, acts as a drug, it's available without a prescription. The website, www.cholesterolscore.com , which focuses on the therapeutic use of niacin, makes a good case that niacin should be the first-choice method in the control of cholesterol.

I've used niacin for five years, and the results have been wonderful.

[Outatime]

Niacin is far superior to any statin. It raises HDL, which is the "good" cholesterol. The only side effects are flushing, which can be eliminated by using a flush-free form of niacin by the name of inositol hexanicotinate. By the way Doctor, you have it backwards, lovastatin was developed after the discovery of red yeast rice, which occurs naturally, so red yeast rice does not contain lovastatin, lovastain contains red yeast rice. Of course, that is the typical mentality of doctors who simply write prescriptions to manage symptoms instead of trying to find the underlying cause of the problem itself and eliminating it. By the way, if high cholesterol is so evil, why do half of all heart attack victims have "normal" levels of cholesterol. I took statins for 12 years and they are poison. They will leave your muscles aching and diminish your health overall. Do a thorough research on cholesterol and you will find that it is essential to good health. Too many doctors are beholden to the pharmaceutical industry and get payoffs and freebies to push these poisons on an unsuspecting public.

[Doctor Rotcod]

Just because experimental results demonstrate a measurable decrease in HMG-CoA reductase with in the presence of red yeast rice does not, BY ANY MEANS, mean that red yeast rice inhibits HMG-CoA reductase like a statin.
Most yeast, such as the species found in red yeast rice, require NICOTINIC ACID (NAD) for growth. Brewer's yeast, red yeast rice, garlic and bran all lower cholesterol because they are rich natural sources of NICOTINIC ACID which cells use to make NAD.
Cholesterol is nothing more than incompletely oxidized GLUCOSE. The building blocks of cholesterol are TWO ACETYL CO-A molecules. Acetyl Co-A is the product of pyruvate oxidation -- and pyruvate is the product of glycolysis.
Acetyl CoA is completely oxidized into hydrogen and CO2 if and ONLY IF there is sufficient NAD and FAD carrier molecules from dietary B2 and B3 to oxidize Acetyl CoA. What we were NOT told in medical school (and this, I believe, is by design because big pharma is the financial backbone of most medical schools where they perform their double-blind studies designed to only blind the physicians who perform their sham trials), is that NADH...which is the carrier molecule that delivers a whopping 80 percent of the hydrogen molecules oxidized from Acetyl CoA and its byproducts of the citric acid cycle...is REDUCED FORM of vitamin B3, which is NICOTINIC ACID.
The active site of NAD comes from NICOTINIC ACID. NAD carries the product of oxidation -- HYDROGEN -- which, in conjunction with CoQ10, serves to generate a hydrogen gradient across the inner mitochondrial membrane which in turn activates ATP synthase to make ATP. Classical studies demonstrate that cells preferentially make NAD from NICOTINIC ACID and NOT NICOTINAMIDE. This is the reason why nicotinic acid (which has an active oxygen group) and NOT nicotinamide (which has a much less active nitrogen group) lowers cholesterol (as the former and not the latter is the chemically-active VITAMIN that makes NAD).
With more NAD made from NICOTINIC ACID, more ATP is made via electron transport via OXIDATION OF ACETYL COA rather than acetyl CoA diverted into an incompletely-oxidized molecule such as CHOLESTEROL, TRIGLYCERIDES or FATTY ACIDS (all fat molecules with building blocks from Acetyl CoA).
Nicotinic acid, then, DOES NOT LOWER CHOLESTEROL at all (was everyone asleep in biochemistry or what!). Rather, nicotinic acid supplementation ensures more NAD is made which ensures glucose is completely oxidized into hydrogen for ATP generation rather than incompletely oxidized into cholesterol (or triglycerides or fatty acids).
Studies have demonstrated that nicotinic acid supplementation. The "A" in NAD and ATP is ADENINE...a purine (more of these are made with nicotinic acid which makes NAD). Vitamin B6 is required in sufficient dietary amounts to ensure purines are metabolized into urea instead of uric acid (again, dust off that biochemistry book!). So, now we see why nicotinic acid supplementation results in elevated uric acid levels in some patients with a vitamin B3 deficiency as B3 and B6 deficiencies go hand-in-hand. Also, nicotinic acid supplementation also results in higher glucose levels in both diabetic and non-diabetic subjects (about an 8% increase). Since nicotinic acid supplementation ensures that Acetyl-CoA (which comes from glucose via pyruvate oxidation and the incorporation of vitamin B5 and ATP into acetate) is more fully oxidized and now entering the citric acid cycle...rather than being incomplete converted into cholesterol, triglycerides, fatty acids, etc.
Please review my web site at DoctoRRotcoD.com and my videos at YouTube.com .
Elevated cholesterol is due to a dietary deficiency of nicotinic acid...and NOTHING MORE.
DoctoR RotcoD (my name may be backwards but not my logic)

[Doctor Rotcod]

Part of my explanation above was cut off in the above posting -- The last paragraph should read: "Studies have demonstrated that nicotinic acid supplementation also results in elevated uric acid levels in some subjects." The last sentence of the same paragraph is incomplete and should read: "Since nicotinic acid supplementation (NAD) ensures that Acetyl-CoA is more fully oxidized, less Acetyl-CoA is available for conversion into incompletely-oxidized by-products such as cholesterol, triglycerides, fatty acids, etc."

This paragraph was "chopped" due to a 5000 word limitation at this site.

Cheers,

DoctoR RotcoD

(any questions, please see DoctoRRotcoD.com ...all made plain as day, or e-mail me at [e-mail])

[Greta]

I don't know what to believe. I read all kinds of information and hear my doctor's words. But I don't know if postings and Websites are accurate. Do they tell the truth? How many of the people who have written about red yeast rice work for the pharamaceutical industry? Is this a trap?