Lipid treatment offers promise

The results of a study by scientists in Croatia indicate that rice policosanol - a mixture of alcohols extracted from sugar-cane wax - has favourable effects on serum lipids. Dr Zeljko Reiner and colleagues at the University Hospital Centre Zagreb, writing in Clinical Drug Investigation, say in an 8-week study of 70 patients with very high cholesterol levels, 10 mg of rice policosanol daily significantly reduced total cholesterol concentrations in plasma and increased apolipoprotein A1 – a protein portion of HDL cholesterol. The researchers could not prove a significant reduction in triglycerides or LDL cholesterol, or increase in HDL cholesterol with policosanol, as has been shown in other studies ? an effect perhaps of the brevity of this study ? and conclude that further work is warranted.

Reuters