Red yeast rice may help those who can’t take statins
Friday, July 30th, 2010 at
5:22 pm
In a new study, Pennsylvania researchers found that a commercially available red yeast rice product significantly decreased the cholesterol in 62 patients with high cholesterol.
Tagged with: cholesterol • Original • pennsylvania researchers • red yeast rice • rice product • study
Filed under: Weight Loss Info
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Wtf
In my oppinion as a scientist, based on previous studies, some of which are referrenced in the JAMA and NEJM articles, ephedra supplements in the 25-50mg range are effective bronchiodilators. Bronchiodilation is achieved normally through exercise. However, for subjects who may be unable to exercise, due to morbid obesity or diabetes for example, the cannot achieve the bronchiodilation from exercise. Thus, the ability of a supplement to safely induce bronchiodilation should be examined. This would mean not only testing the dosage requirements, but also determining what is needed for this to be done safely. As in, what activities should subjects refrain from when on the medication. It seems to me that they should refrain from intense exercise because of the apparent relationship between bronchiodilation and harmful bp seen when subjects were exercising. I, of course, would like to know what that data looks like. How does bp increase during normal exercise, and how does it increase during exercise when a patient has taken a bronciodilator? How does the amount of bronchiodilations affect bp levels when a subject is not exercising? How do physiological benefits of bronchiodialtion respond to varying dosage of ephedra? All this is very interesting to me, and I was quite disappointed as an undergrad intent on studying cardiovascular therapies that there would be no further tests on ephedra.
The treatment of ephedra as a food vs a drug has also interested me. The FDA rarely bans foods to the extent that it banned ephedra – which is a natural supplement falling under the food category. As a student back at UMass, however, I learned that certain foods, and also certain activities such as exercise (studying exercise as a prescription to obtain distinct medical benefits = the study of kinesiology) had obvious effects on physiological funcitons and health, so it might make more sense to treat a food like ephedra in the same way we would treat drugs, however, in order to do this, the should re-do their examination, start from the beginning, as if it were a new product.
So, to answer your question, if it were up to me, I would return to testing of ephedra as a drug, starting with the experiments I briefly stated above, so that it might become a potentional medical treatment for metabolic syndrome.
Let’s assume that most people continue communicating the way they do here presently; by writing. If used sparingly, an occasional inserted image might end up being the entry that helps the conversation continue, rather than split it amongst separate posts. Most importantly; its usefulness will be determined ultimately by its execution. If done smartly, it could work, otherwise it might end up being distracting. The friendfeed development team has been fairly consistent in their high quality of work, so I don’t see this as an issue. The only reason I mentioned Wave, was to point out how important Google thought it was to create a user friendly, all inclusive service from the start. All communication platforms should be as user friendly as possible. Friendfeed is no different. Gus, no GIF’s would solve the problem.