policosanol vs. ryr

[dess]

i am planning a sd cycle and was wondering wat would be better to maintain cholesterol levels policosanol or ryr with coq10. how much of the policosanol should i take, and how much fish oil should i get. if they are near equivalent i would perfere the policosanol becauase it is cheaper.

 

[chuckymiller]

i am planning a sd cycle and was wondering wat would be better to maintain cholesterol levels policosanol or ryr with coq10. how much of the policosanol should i take, and how much fish oil should i get. if they are near equivalent i would perfere the policosanol becauase it is cheaper.

Much as I can tell, policosanol is much more hit or miss. When I did a Medline search, it seemed that the only studies that showed efficacy were published by the same bunch of Cuban researchers, the studies not showing efficacy were outside Cuba. RYR definitely will take down LDL and improve ratios (but will not raise HDL). RYR contains statins (albeit low dose) and thus side effects such as muscle problems are possible, though pretty rare. The only way to really know for yourself would be to get a baseline, take one by itself for several weeks and get a follow-up and then do the other. RYR is pretty cheap too, go onto Amazon.Com and look up RYR and they will link you to Source Natural. It is standardized to a pretty high level (1.5% mevalonic acids) and is like 14 bucks for a bottle of 120, I think 1 to 3 a day is recommended....the COQ10 of course will increase the price but is probably worth it given the generally unknown consequence of decreasing its levels as occurs with HMGA-Co-reductase inhibitors (CoQ10 is built from the same precursor which is inhibited in cholesterol synthesis). Statins have been linked in many clinical studies with lots of possible other benefits as well (decreased Alzheimer, cancer, etc), some of the studies have been pretty large, too. By itself, RYR extract at its recommended doses probably decreases LDL 20-25%, don't know about oncycle. Fish oil is kind of funny in that you can get the gels pretty cheap but I always worry because there is other crap in there, such as mercury, PCBs, etc...these things store up in the oil and if the oil comes from salmon, it might get pretty high. Also, the fish oil has a bunch of saturated fatty acids that are either undigestible and taste bad or provide extra calories with no additional benefit. I used to buy Health from the Sun fish oil cuz I could get it 8 ounce for 6 or 7 bucks a bottle, it was molecularly distilled so even though it still contained the fatty acids, it did not have too much PCBs, mercury, etc. Now they jacked the price so I looked further into it and found some pharmaceutical grade fish oil at IHerb. An 8 oz bottle with their discopunt, free shipping, etc came to like 23 bucks a bottle. Sounds like a lot but this stuff is much purer so you need less...1 teaspoon provides more than 2 grams of actual omegas which is over twice the concentration of the non-concentrated stuff, plus it just plain tastes much better. 1 bottle is about 45 servings so it is about 50 cents for over 2 grams of the actual omega 3's...I am not sure how many caps of salmon oil you have to take to get that, but I am guessing quite a damn few! Good luck with it

 

[rrgg]

I used to buy Health from the Sun fish oil cuz I could get it 8 ounce for 6 or 7 bucks a bottle, it was molecularly distilled so even though it still contained the fatty acids, it did not have too much PCBs, mercury, etc.

Has any real testing been done on how much mercury is in fish oil caps? Or are we just assuming that the all the mercury in fish meat is extracted into the oil?

 

[chuckymiller]

fish oil and mercury

Has any real testing been done on how much mercury is in fish oil caps? Or are we just assuming that the all the mercury in fish meat is extracted into the oil?

rrgg - your question prompted me to question some of my previous held assumptions regarding fish oil. In effect, it might seem that highly lipophilic substances such as dialkylmercurys and halogenated aromatics such as PCBs would naturally reside in a lipohilic environment like the fat in fish. Interestingly, when I searched the topic by GOOGLE and Medscape, it seemed what studies I could find indicated that the levels of mercury and PCBs in fish oil were below the limits of detection....I did not actually read the full reports but apparently one of them was a Consumer Repots from last year in which they looked at like 40 different fish oils. Maybe I don't need to be buying the expensive distilled stuff! Although I will say that this pharmaceutical fish oil I recently got (20 bucks for 8 ounces) tastes really good, and is more than twice the concentration of omega 3's as compared to typical oils. The typical fish oils do contain various other fats (saturated, etc) which apparently foul the taste and also increase calories without adding additional putative benefit.

 

[FunkMasterFlex]

NOw foods has molcaularly distilled and enteric coated softgels that seem to do the trick for me.

 

[rrgg]

chuckymiller-- Thanks a lot for checking that out. I'm glad to hear there's a chance I can continue my frugal ways and buy the Puritan's Pride fish oil I'm using. I happen to subscribe to Consumer Reports so I'll look for that article also.

 

[thanatopsis]

For my cycle I am taking all three... RYR, Policosanol, and Coq10. Also throwing in 8 grams of fish oil a day for good measure. When safety is concerned I like to do as much as I can.

 

[chuckymiller]

For my cycle I am taking all three... RYR, Policosanol, and Coq10. Also throwing in 8 grams of fish oil a day for good measure. When safety is concerned I like to do as much as I can.

I agree about taking all three, and I would like to add that I do so continuously, regardless of whatever else supplements I might be taking. One should consider that these substance do not necessarily "kick in" right away so one should at a minimum start taking them a few weeks before you planning on taking any cholesterol unfriendly supplements and continue taking through any recovery period. While I am pretty new to taking RYR and Policosanol, I have been a long term user and proponent of fish oil. It drop kicked my triglycerides (they went from like over 200 to 60) and I swear that it helped me lose abdominal fat too.

 

[Syr]

I agree about taking all three, and I would like to add that I do so continuously, regardless of whatever else supplements I might be taking.

Wait, wait. RYR is NOT something you would like to take all-year round. Oils and policosanol are.

And lets not forget garlic extract too. CNW has allicin powder very cheap.

 

[chuckymiller]

Wait, wait. RYR is NOT something you would like to take all-year round. Oils and policosanol are.

And lets not forget garlic extract too. CNW has allicin powder very cheap.

I wonder why one would not want to use RYR all-year, but policosanol is ok....I am not aware of any studies that have evaluated policosanol or RYR long term. I am aware of many long term studies, well-designed studies that have evaluated lovastatin (mevachor) which is believed to be the main active ingredient (AKA mevachor). I am aware of very low rate of rhabidomyosis in mevachor users, as well as rare cases of elevated liver enzymes, but I believe these have occurred at doses beyond what is in a typical RYR dose (Mevachor is usually dosed at a minimum of 20 mgs per day, RYR at 0.4% mevilonin concentration would require more than 5 grams per day to give the same amount of mevachor). Mevachor has the observation of millions of people years behind it and I venture to say its risks upon long term use are much better characterized than policosanol. Further to this, red yeast rice has been a staple food in the Chinese diets for centuries and has yet to, in my knowledge, been linked with significant adverse effects outside of what one might find for related food products. In contrast, I have yet to find any study that purports to show the mechanism of action of policosanol, and certainly nothing even remotely resembling a long term safety study. Every study I have seen that purports to show policsanols efficacy seems to have been done in Cuba, and almost every study done outside of Cuba in human (and animals) has not shown efficacy. I am just curious as to where you found your information that supports that RYR is not safe for year round use but that policosanol is. Given what I have found in my searches, I would have been led to the opposite conclusion. Cheers...