Cholesterol-lowering supplements - includes related article

Nutrition Action Healthletter, Nov, 1997 by David Schardt

"Their standards for effectiveness are not as rigorous as ours in North America," he cautions. "So it's difficult to know what to conclude."

Chromium

"Research shows that daily supplements with at least 200 micrograms of chromium picolinate help to... reduce elevated cholesterol levels." That's what you'll read on Global Nutrients' Web site (www.nutrient.com).

Unfortunately, it's not what the good research shows.

"We found that 900 micrograms of chromium picolinate a day for three months had absolutely no effect on the cholesterol levels of 18 out-of-shape middle-aged adults," reports Wayne Campbell, who is now at the University of Arkansas.

Another chromium preparation, ChromeMate, combines chromium with a small amount of niacin. According to its Web site (www.interhealthusa.com), the "patented form of chromium" is "an essential mineral for...lower cholesterol."

But in two recent studies on people with cholesterol of around 200, about 200 micrograms a day of ChromeMate or another chromium-niacin supplement for two to three months did nothing.[10,11]

[1] Ann. Intern. Med. 119: 545, 1993.

[2] Amer. J. Cardiol. 79: 34, 1997.

[3] O. J. Pollak & D. Kritchevsky, Sitosterol (New York: Karger, 1981).

[4] New Eng. J. Med. 333: 1308, 1995.

[5] Amer. J. Clin. Nutr. 65: 445, 1997.

[6] J. Royal Coll. Phys. London 30: 329, 1996.

[7] Amer. J. Clin. Nutr. 64: 866, 1996.

[8] J. Nutr. Biochem. 8: 290, 1997.

[9] Cardio. Drugs Therapy 8: 659, 1994.

[10] Diab. Res. Clin. Prac. 28: 179, 1995.

[11] Biol. Trace Elem. Res. 55: 297, 1996.

RELATED ARTICLE: BUYER BEWARE

Why not save money and use dietary supplements to lower your cholesterol? For one thing, we know far less about their safety and effectiveness than we know about drugs.

"The extensive testing of prescription and non-prescription drugs develops a safety profile of them, so that we can get a good idea of how safe they are, who shouldn't take them, and who should be monitored when using them," says Ralph D'Agostino of Boston University. D'Agostino chairs the Food and Drug Administration's Nonprescription Drugs Advisory Committee.

Many dietary supplements are tested on no more than a few dozen people for a month or two. "That's not nearly enough people or time to find out who shouldn't be taking them," notes D'Agostino.

Take the supplement Cholestin. Its label says that it shouldn't be used by those who have a serious infection, serious disease, physical disorder, unexplained muscle pain, tenderness or weakness; those who consume more than two drinks a day; or those who have had organ transplants.

Where did those warnings come from? Not from studies of Cholestin, concedes Michael Chang of Pharmanex, its U.S. manufacturer. The company's studies, all conducted in China, didn't detect those risks. Rather, Cholestin's warnings are based on the research on prescription statin drugs like lovastatin, which have been tested on almost 30,000 people for up to five years.

That's possible because Cholestin has the same active ingredient as lovastatin. Most other supplements don't have the luxury of borrowing safety information from similar prescription drugs.