Having a high blood cholesterol level is a risk factor for heart disease. Health-care practitioners often advise their patients to maintain a healthy cholesterol level because it can be manipulated through drug therapy and lifestyle changes. NatureMade, a company that manufactures dietary supplements, introduced Cholestoff, a product to naturally lower cholesterol.
About CholestOff
NatureMade produces the dietary supplement CholestOff to help patients with high cholesterol levels to lower them to a healthy level. It is meant to be used in conjunction with a heart-healthy diet and a regular physical exercise regimen. Two CholestOff tablets should be taken twice a day 15 to 30 minutes before meals, according to the company website. The supplements should be taken before meals because the active ingredients help to block cholesterol absorption. The active ingredients---sterols and stanols from plants---reduce LDL, or bad cholesterol, and are responsible for preventing this absorption.
Ingredients
The sterols and stanols used in CholestOff, called reducol, come from non-genetically modified pine trees, not from the alternative soybean oil, NatureMade says. Other ingredients listed for this supplement include tribasic calcium phosphate, croscarmellose sodium, hydroxypropyl methylcellulose, calcium carbonate, silicon dioxide, magnesium stearate, titanium dioxide, polyethylene glycol, triethyl citrate, polysorbate 80 and sodium citrate.
Plant Sterol and Stanols
Reducol is a patented product of compounds from phytosterols and phytostanols that is used in CholestOff. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, FDA, has already recognized it as generally safe to aid in LDL reduction. The Reducol website reports that there have been more than 100 clinical studies since the 1950s to support this claim. Plant sterol and stanols naturally occur in plants and lower the levels of bad cholesterol by between 6 percent and 15 percent without decreasing the good cholesterol level. The Cleveland Clinic says that studies that showed significant improvements used 2g to 3g of plant stanols daily.
Side Effects
The manufacturer's website does not list significant side effects from Cholestoff other than mild gastrointestinal effects. There is also no warning for possible drug interactions with prescribed cholesterol-lowering medication. Regardless, it is strongly advisable to disclose the use of all medications and supplements to your health-care provider if supplementing with Cholestoff is under consideration.
Warning
Though the FDA does not evaluate the statements and claims made by the manufacturer, NatureMade states that CholestOff has been clinically proved to be effective in reducing LDL, or "bad" cholesterol levels. Children and pregnant or lactating women should not use CholestOff.
