HEALTH

Herbal drug & Lower cholesterol

New Delhi: A cocktail of black pepper, grape seed and red yeast rice powders combined with a heart-friendly lifestyle can lower blood cholesterol by up to 30 per cent, a clinical trial in Medanta, The Medicity, a private hospital in Gurgaon near Delhi, has suggested.

The trial, although based on a small number of human volunteers, has found that a 12-week course of treatment with a pill containing these herbal products and two vitamins lowered cholesterol to levels comparable with reductions observed through statin therapy.

Dr Ravi Kasliwal, the chairman of clinical and preventive cardiology at Medanta and doctors from seven Indian hospitals who participated in the trial, documented it in Nutrition, an international research journal.

Cardiologists have underscored the need to validate its results through larger studies, but say these preliminary findings suggest the pill – sold in the US as a nutritional supplement – could serve as an alternative to statins for at least some patients. “What we’ve seen is encouraging, we’re now planning large-scale and longer trials,” said Dr Kasliwal.

He said studies on nutritional supplements may be relevant to countries such as India where, earlier studies have estimated, only about five per cent of patients with risk factors for cardiovascular disease take statins regularly.

The doctors have called it the first “randomised, double-blind placebo-controlled study” to assess the safety and efficacy of a nutritional supplement against a cardiovascular risk factor in India.

In a double-blind study, neither doctors nor patients know who is taking the drug and the placebo, and is a rigorous way of evaluating drugs.

“As a cardiologist, I routinely prescribe statins to many patients, but the reality is – there are some patients who are averse to taking statins because they’re concerned about lifelong therapy, and some patients turn away because of their side-effects,” Dr Kasliwal said.

The doctors tested an over-the-counter nutritional supplement that is sold in the US and contains red yeast rice powder, grape seed powder, black pepper powder, and two compounds from the Vitamin B group – niacinamide and folic acid.

Earlier medical studies have established niacinamide as a cholesterol-lowering agent. Red yeast rice, made by fermenting a type of yeast over red rice, has also has been shown in some studies to reduce cholesterol.

Five minutes every day

Stockholm: Four-year-olds who exercise for five minutes every day reap significant health benefits, Swedish researchers said, reports IANS.

Five minutes of intense physical activity is enough for children to lose fat and see marked improvements in stamina and strength, the research from Stockholm’s Karolinska Institute showed. “I was a little surprised that we found this correlation between physical activity, muscle strength and stamina,” Marie Lof, a senior researcher in biosciences and nutrition, said in a statement, Xinhua reported.

The results showed stronger benefits than expected for young children who exercise more than their peers, Lof said. Intense, tiresome activity delivers the greatest results, she added, but stressed that a gym membership is not necessary. “One can play with soft balls or balloons, anything to spur the activity in a natural way,” Lof said.

Vegetarianism Unfriendly!

Contrary to popular assumption – and a talk by actor Arnold Schwarzenegger at the United Nations Paris Climate Change Conference – eating a vegetarian diet  could contribute more to climate change than eating a non-vegetarian diet, warns a new study, reports IANS. 

Schwarzenegger, a former California governor, advised people to go meat-free one or two days a week to help protect the climate. But the new research found that consuming more fruits, vegetables, dairy and seafood is more harmful to the environment because those foods have relatively high resource uses and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per calorie.

“Eating lettuce is over three times worse in greenhouse gas emissions than eating bacon,” said one of the researchers Paul Fischbeck, professor at Carnegie Mellon University in the US.