By Julia Ng, Channel NewsAsia

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/137151
/1/.html



SINGAPORE : According to the National Health Survey, more than half
of Singaporeans have an unhealthy level of bad cholesterol.

But if you have to pop pills to keep your cholesterol in check,
there is now an alternative to Western statins to lower cholesterol
levels.



A landmark study on a Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) health
supplement has found that it is not only just as effective as
Western statins, it is also better at preventing heart attacks.

The clinical study, the first to be done on a TCM drug, included
Singapore heart patients.

Jeremy Harris , who has high cholesterol, was once so put off by the
side effects of cholesterol-lowering statins that he stopped taking
them.

Statins are known to have side effects like liver toxicity and
muscles aches.

But Jeremy can now take a TCM drug to treat his cholesterol problem,
as it is now clinically proven to have none of the side effects of
Western statins.

Called Xuezhikang, it is made from fermented red yeast rice and is
the leading statin in China.

But doctors wanted to know if it could also prevent heart diseases
besides lowering cholesterol.

So Professor Lu Zongliang from the Beijing Chinese Academy of
Medical Sciences did a four-year clinical study using Xuezhikang on
almost 5,000 heart patients in China, at 65 hospitals in 19
provinces across China.

And it found that heart patients who took Xuezhikang had a much
lower risk of getting heart attacks (45 percent compared to 24
percent), than those who took Western statins.

Professor Lu said, "The significance of my study is that this is the
first time China applied evidence-based medicine to prove the
efficacy of a TCM drug in treating coronary heart diseases. That was
never done before.

"It proves that Xuezhikang does indeed lower cholesterol, protects
the heart, and has little side effects....And anyone with high blood
pressure, coronary heart disease, diabetes, obesity could benefit
from taking Xuezhikang."

Other researchers are also excited by the study - as it showed that
the TCM drug reduced the risk of cancer by half.

Dr Li Zhaoping, Director, Clinical Research Unit, David Geffen
School of Medicine at UCLA, said, "There's a significant drop in
cancer incidence and death when people take Chinese red yeast
rice...At UCLA United States, we have done some preliminary work,
and we have been amazed at those compounds, and their significant
effects on cancer cell growth.

"It decreases the inflammation of the body and as you know
inflammation causes a lot of problems, including heart disease and
stroke....So we're very very excited, we're moving forward to on to
clinical trials in the US to further clarify those functions."

A smaller study on 30 patients was also carried out at the Singapore
National Heart Centre which drew similar conclusions on cholesterol
reduction.

Besides being safe and free from side effects, the key advantage of
such TCM alternatives is price.

They cost two-thirds of what patients would have to pay for Western
statins.

In Singapore, Xuezhikang is available as HypoCol and the more potent
Lipascor.

Both are approved by the Singapore Health Sciences Authority under
the new guidelines of Chinese Proprietary Medicine. - CNA