Hi Kitty and Paul
I hope you are feeling well

[Since you express interest and I am a very open person, I will be frank (not
that I am ever non-frank, but sometimes just don't bother saying anything - but
today I doing so). Physically we are both very well. However, mentally, I,
particularly, continue to get depressed from time to time, because I am
convinced that I have major solutions to most of the clear ills of society,
which solutions I cannot even get anyone to really consider and understand, much
less energetically act on. Even with respect to many of my health
recommendations to people, very few really want to hear the truth and few
express or demonstrate any acknowledgement or appreciation. Still, there are
some exceptions (you being one of them) and I guess I should be satisfied with
the few positives that I get rather than dwelling on all the failures - but it
is difficult at times. --Paul]


I fall on a study published in JAMA, 2006,

[I am again going to correct your English word usages in this email, so as to
help you. The phrase above would better read either "I noticed a study" or "I
came upon a study". The word "fall" is far too physical to be used in the
strictly mental sense of this phrase. --Paul]


about the non interest of policosanol in lowering LDL cholesterol:

[Based on the abstract, I think the word that you want above is
"non-effectiveness" rather than "non interest" or perhaps you mean
"non-recommendation" because of lack of effectiveness. --Paul]


(a randomized double bind placebo controlled study)
http://tinyurl.com/2o98cm (I now know what is tinyurl.com :-))
PMID:16705107

[Excellent! I very much appreciate people who will try and learn new and clearly
better techniques. This shows that your mind is still alive to new learning,
rather than effectively dead as with so many people. However, with a PMID link,
it is not really necessary to use tinyurl, since a link just as tiny is
available as long as you know the PMID number, namely: http://pmid.us/16705107
--Paul]


the full text is available:
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/295/19/2262
Quoted from the abstract, "More than 80 placebo-controlled or
comparative trials, performed mostly by a single research institute,
suggest that policosanol at doses of 5 to 40 mg/d has lipoprotein-
lowering effects comparable with statins"; (for instance in PubMed,
a search with "Menéndez R"[Author] policosanol )
which may be understood as these results could be faked

[Yes. All the previous research results came from the same Cuban research team.
All research in Cuba is government controlled and there are at least two reasons
for faking positive effects for policasanol. The first is that it is derived
from sugar cane and Cuba has lots of that for sale. The second is that as a
socialist dictatorship, with a dictator (Castro) with a publically stated
interest in healthy long life, Cuba has a vested interest in appearing to do
valuable research in this direction. Many have, since the beginning (late
1990s), thought that the results about policosanol might be false, but until
there was some other evidence and with its low cost and lack of harm, it was
still worth trying. It is certainly one of the supplements that I take which I
would cut out if I had to pay for it. I did not eliminate it to cut down my
large pill number, simply because it is so tiny a tablet. I will probably
discontinue usage of it now. OTOH, one also needs to be very suspicious and
circumspect about any study reported in JAMA or other establishment journals.
This is because the people involved all have their own enormous vested interest
in supporting the pharmaceutical "empire" and denigrating almost anything that
can be obtained as a nutritional supplement. Therefore, even with this study, I
do not consider the situation with policosanol as 100% clearly known. --Paul]

[Something that would be very interesting and potentially valuable to many
readers (including us), would be for someone to read the full paper with focus
on the manner in which the study was done to pick out any and all possible ways
in which it was questionably set up to fail. Then the poster (first qualified to
post as per the group policy) can bring the analysis here to the group in a
message for review and comment by us and others. **Kitty]


There is another study about that but this one is not really clear
for me about the interest or the non interest of policosanol
http://tinyurl.com/22jupv
PMID:16611388
More precisely, I don't know how to understand "The differences in
response may be ascribed to the differences in composition of the
higher aliphatic primary alcohols in the previously used products
(!!!!), compared with the local policosanol supplement" what
previously used products ? In former studies ?
the differences in response: between this study (no significant
effect) and former studies (significant effect)

[Policosanol is not a pure substance (one molecular structure only), but instead
a mixture of very long chain alcohols and even some branched chains (aliphatic
means "open chain structured"). As I recall, the chains of carbon atoms in
policosanol are as long as or longer than those in fish oil (as well as being
fully saturated) and are similar to those in wax. So these researchers are
honestly acknowledging that the differences in results could well be due to
differences in the ratios of the actual molecules in the policosanol
formulations used in the two studies. However in the first study you gave above,
this factor would not seem to apply because the full text states that the
policosanol they used was obtained directly from Cuba, and so should have been
as identical as possible to that used in the positive Cuban studies. --Paul]


Unfortunately, no full text

This post is related to the intake of policosanol by Kitty and Paul
( see : http://morelife.org/personal/health/his-regimen.html or
http://morelife.org/personal/health/his-regimen_changes.html )

(This is not connected but thanks for the posts giving sources for
potassium (
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/morelife/message/1681 ) I was
looking for a source and didn't find one )

Thanks for your work
Francois Rose