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# Red yeast rice helps lower more than cholesterol
- URL: https://www.foodconsumer.org/red_yeast_rice_cholesterol_1227121155/
- Published: 2012-12-28T00:54:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-22T15:57:41.000Z
- Description: A review reports red yeast rice lowers LDL and total cholesterol about as well as statins -- it contains monacolin K, or lovastatin -- and may also improve triglycerides and HDL. Evidence for effects on diabetes, osteoporosis, cancer, fatty liver, fatigue and memory remains limited.
- Author: Food Consumer
- Tags: Supplements, Nutrition, #vivvo-import

By David Liu, PHD

Thursday Dec 27, 2012 (foodconsumer.org) -- In a review article published in Complementary Therapies in Medicine, C. W. Yang and S.A. Mousa from the Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences in Rensselaer, New York reported that taking red yeast rice supplements may not only lower low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, but also lower risk of a range of chronic diseases or health conditions including dyslipidemia, coronary heart disease or coronary artery disease, diabetes mellitus, osteoporosis, cancer, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, fatigue, and memory.

Red Yeast Rice is a traditional Chinese food that is fermented and harvested after red yeast (Monascus purpureus) is grown on rice, which is also produced in the process of rice wine fermentation. 

Red yeast rice has been well researched and found to be as effective as statins in lowering LDL cholesterol and total cholesterol. The current review has confirmed the same conclusions.

The cholesterol lowering effect should not be a surprise. Red yeast rice contains Monacolin K or otherwise known as Lovastatin - a type of statin, and other active ingredients that are believed to play a role in the controlling of serum cholesterol. 

In addition to the LDL cholesterol lowering effect, red yeast rice, the reviewers reported, is also found in some studies to be able to have a favorable effect on triglycerides and high density lipoprotein cholesterol.

Red yeast rice seems able to prevent nonfatal myocardial infarction, total coronary heart disease events, and total deaths, according to the review.

However, evidence is limited that shows red yeast rice has an effect on diabetes mellitus, osteoporosis, cancers, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, fatigue, and memory although some in vivo and in vitro studies have suggested an effect.