My cardiologist recommended "Complimentary RX" Red Yeast Rice (RYR) because that is what the pharmacy at Scripps Integrative Medicine sells. I couldn't find the brand on the web, so I submitted the question below to NOW Foods, Inc. Their reply is part of the quote below.

The product I'm interested in can be seen at http://www.iherb.com/ProductDetails....&pid=6687&at=0

The NOW Food Quality Assurance link is http://www.nowfoods.com/index.php/el...e/cat_id/33841 to get to various quality control topics.

"QUESTION: and REPLY:" was added by me to make the messages below easier to read.

Just a note to say that my wife has been taking Red Yeast Rice that she buys at Wal-Mart for about a year. It has seems to have made a difference in her cholesteral. Haven't heard anything one way or the other about the quality.

Ron

That was a rather banal reply.

No mention as to where the RYR comes from, or whether it is standardized to
potency, or a special strain, concentrated, nothing.

And no test to see if it has lovastatin (because then the FDA will yank it), of course, because that is the real mechanism of action.

RYR has lovastatin in it, for sure. It also has at least 6 other active components that work similar to, but not identical to the lovastatin. Did you not read the research report from UCLA that I posted previously?

I agree that the answer was somewhat banal. I assume that all RYR comes from China. It is reassuring that it's tested for contaminants by NOW Foods, but that isn't nearly enough.

It's ironical that the FDA tests the validity of food labels, but not supplement labels. I don't think that the situation with drugs is any better. Drug side effects are a major killer, as with Vioxx, Fenphen, etc.The job that the FDA does with drugs is ludicrous, allowing the companies that stand to profit from the sale of drugs do the approval testing of those drugs. We should demand independent testing of drugs and supplements both for safety, effectiveness, and labeling accuracy.

With RYR, every study I looked at found RYR to be as effective as statin drugs and far safer.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/...n3896578.shtml

I just got 10 shots of this stuff in the hospital 3 weeks ago. Wonderful. I was wondering why i had a recent craving for corn on the cob. Between 4 dollar a gallon heating oil and gas, a multitude of jobs being shipped overseas and contamination of so many food and drug products from china its dismaying how complacent most people here are about all of this.

That is so sad and scary. I hope that HeyJoe isn't damaged by that junk.