Red Yeast Rice Plus CoQ10

Solaray established its reputation with blended herbal supplements, but no one seems to remember it these days since they have all sorts of vitamins and supplements now, including a fair number of multivitamins, such as the very popular >Spectro multivitamins.  However, we will not be talking about vitamins today.  In keeping with the Solaray’s roots we’ll describe a supplement – Solaray Red Yeast Rice Plus CoQ10. 

So what do we know about this Red Yeast Rice thing?  A lot actually.  Red yeast rice has been used for centuries in China as both a food and a medicine.  It is made by fermenting red rice with a yeast called Monascus purpureus.  Recent research has shown that red yeast rice contains substances that are similar to prescription statin medications. As you may recall, statins lower blood cholesterol by inhibiting the enzyme that is responsible for cholesterol production in the body.

You can say that you bought Red Yeast Rice supplement before and did not see word stain or cholesterol anywhere on the label, why is that?  The simple answer is they cannot be mentioned.  Both supplements and drugs are regulated by the same government agency here in the US – the Food and Drug Administration.  Supplements are regulated as foods and drugs are regulated as (do I hear a drum roll?) drugs.  But, you say, supplements are pills, are they not, in what version of Brave New World do we live in if pills are considered food?  Suspend your common sense.  In the world of government regulations, food means a natural substance that has a long track record of human consumption, while drugs are highly derivative or synthetic substances that do not have such track record.  As a consequence foods and supplements are presumed safe unless proven otherwise, while drugs are presumed unsafe until proven safe.  The difference is about $1B in human medical trial and FDA fee costs to the drug manufacturers.  So what, you say, if supplement industry would have had to shell out $1B for each supplement, I don’t mind paying a little (or a lot) extra since they will be safer, right?  Wrong, I answer, since there will not be any.  Drug companies can protect their $1B investment with patents, but supplement manufacturers will not be able too, since one cannot patent a thing that has been found in nature and/or has been in human use for centuries, so no one will put up the billions required.  So call your congressman and tell them that supplements are foods, but I digressed…

What about that other CoQ10 thing that is in this product?  CoQ10, or Coenzyme Q10, is a vitamin like substance that is found in the energy-producing center of the cell known as the mitochondria and is involved in the making the cell’s major energy source – a molecule called ATP.  Furthermore, Coenzyme Q10 is very important for hart health and tends to be lower than normal levels in people with congestive hart failure.  Coenzyme Q10 also tends to be lower in people with high cholesterol, and is found to be lowered further by statins (the ones in drugs or red yeast rice).  So if you are taking statins for your high cholesterol, chances are that you need more CoQ10.  Yet another thing that supplement manufacturers like Solaray cannot tell you for fear of being shut down for selling “unregulated drugs.”