5 min read

RED YEAST RICE has been used in East Asia for centuries to make alcohol and fermented foods. Certain strains have also been used in herbal remedies. Today, it sits on American supplement shelves with a modern promise: lower your cholesterol naturally without taking a prescription statin.

For people uneasy about statins, a natural alternative might sound pretty great. Why take a prescription medication with some notoriously bad side effects when you could pop something fermented from rice instead? Online, a growing number of Reddit threads host users who say their PCPs and cardiologists have prescribed them red yeast rice extract instead of statins.

At a time when eligibility for statins has expanded to include younger and low-risk individuals, what’s going on here?

First, What’s the Deal With Statins?

TO UNDERSTAND THE debate over red yeast rice, it’s a good reminder to know what a statin does in the first place.

“Statins are prescription medications that lower low-density lipoprotein (LDL),…