Policosanol

Suspicious Aroma

Policosanol must be getting too close for comfort. Too close to being proven effective, that is. How can you tell? It appears that mainstream medicine is going on the attack.

Policosanol is a compound of fatty alcohols derived from sugar cane or beeswax. As a cholesterol-lowering agent, it has developed a reputation as an effective alternative to statin drugs. And in striking contrast to statin use, policosanol has been shown to be virtually free of adverse side effects.

But when you start cutting in on drug company profits, don’t expect the powers that be to kindly move aside to let you through. In fact, expect just the opposite.

Rodent in the house

“I smell a rat.”

That’s how HSI Panelist Allan Spreen, M.D., describes his reaction to a policosanol study that appeared in a recent issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The study was conducted by Dr. Heiner K. Berthold, the executive secretary of the Drug Commission of the German Medical Association. Last month, Dr. Berthold told Reuters Health that he launched the research because “almost all” the existing policosanol studies that show the sugar cane extract to be effective at lowering cholesterol have been conducted by a single research group in Cuba. The Cuban studies were financed by Dalmer Laboratories, a marketer of policosanol.

Okay, fair enough. Naturally, since he was concerned about the source and quality of previous studies, Dr. Berthold mounted a study that lasted long enough to fairly test policosanol’s effectiveness on a large cohort of subjects, right?

Wellnot so much. Fewer than 145 subjects with moderately high LDL levels were recruited for a trial period that only ran 12 weeks. Results showed that none of the subjects who took policosanol decreased LDL levels by more than 10 percent. And when it came to lowering LDL, there was no statistical difference between policosanol and placebo. (Which begs the question: Can the placebo effect actually lower cholesterol levels? To understand why we should be suspicious of placebos used in clinical trials, see the e-Alert “The Importance of Being Inert” 2/2/05.)

Naturally, when Reuters Health weighed this one study against all the previous positive studies, policosanol was dismissed as “trendy,” while the lead paragraph stated flatly that the treatment “appears to be useless.”

Not so fast

Let’s return to Dr. Spreen’s comments to get some history on how natural therapies that lower cholesterol are treated by the drug industry

“As you know, the really effective agent, cholestin (red yeast rice) was literally outlawed, in court, by pharmaceutical company action (at least the name was, which is its actual name, not brand name). And no therapeutic claims can be made about the yeast. Policosanol, which came about later, is the only competitor left other than niacin (which to be really effective causes you to get the infamous ‘flush’). Fortunately, nobody disputes the niacin effectit’s even a prescription ‘drug’ now. However, it’s no real competitor since few people will tolerate the harmless side effect (and a few are allergic to it).

“Returning to policosanol – it’s long been proven to work, and in more than one study, so the old rat’s lingering around here somewhere. Ethically, the current study should never have been published without offering some rationale for it being at such odds with the other reports (but hey, we’re talking the hundreds of billions [!] of dollars in statin drug profits here).

Dr. Spreen also cites a 2002 article in Dr. Jonathan V. Wright’s Nutrition & Healing newsletter in which Dr. Wright presented test results that showed policosanol performing better than placebo and the cholesterol-lowering drugs Mevacor and Pravachol. In fact policosanol was superior in four categories: raising HDL, and lowering LDL, total cholesterol and triglycerides.

Dr. Wright also notes that policosanol may help prevent strokes by inhibiting platelet aggregation and abnormal blood clotting, and may even lower blood pressure as well.

How’s that for a good trend to follow?

Sources:
“Effect of Policosanol on Lipid Levels Among Patients With Hypercholesterolemia or Combined Hyperlipidemia” Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 295, No. 19, jama.ama-assn.org
“Trendy Supplement Doesn’t Lower Cholesterol” Reuters Health, 5/17/06, reutershealth.com
“The Sweet Secret for Effectively Lowering Cholesterol Levels – Three Studies Prove Sugar Can Extract More Potent than ‘Statin’ Drugs” Jonathan V. Wright, M.D., Nutrition & Healing, January 2002, wrightnewsletter.com
“Focus Pocus” Mary Huhn, The New York Post, 4/6/06, nypost.com