Black Fungus and Cholesterol

Thank you all for your question in the WhatUp Doc chat.

 I am sorry I cannot comment whether or not mok yee (black fungus) lowers blood cholesterol levels as claimed in the chat you sent me for my opinion.

I have no relevant published information on this. To do so would be very unprofessional and unscientific.

However mok yee  or “yun er” (cloud ear) or “mouse ear” have been touted by many to have many health benefits including lowering blood cholesterol and thinning the blood by preventing platelet aggregation like acetylsalicylate (aspirin) However these are personal claims based on their personal experience rather than findings from well-designed scientific studies.

  

Nonetheless, personal experience can be treated as “case study” that may be a platform or a pilot for large scale statistically-designed population studies. In fact many current scientific studies are based on empirical evidences on food and traditional medicines practices adopted by most ancient civilizations for over 5,000 years.  


They were empirically shown to be clinically effective and therapeutic, else civilizations consisting of hundreds of millions of people over the ages would have abandoned  their beliefs and practices long, long ago.


Over 80 percent of the world population still prefer and use alternative medicine or traditional medicine over conventional medicine and we cannot ignore their belief and usage. Even the World Health Organization encourage them and wants them to be part of the health system in any country. 

As scientists and modern doctors, we need to respect this, and their system of beliefs and therapeutics. That’s how we do research on existing beliefs and hypothesis.

This this the same with other natural medicines in current practice aimed at lowering blood cholesterol. Many of them include natural medicines such as Commiphora wightii (guggul) which is an Indian medicine from the bdellium-tree or Mukul myrrh which contains steroid guggulsterone that pharmacologically acts as an antagonist farnesoid X receptor to block out cholesterol synthesis in the liver.

Then again several studies have been published showing there was no overall reduction in total cholesterol  using various dosages of guggulsterone. But I must add that these studies were funded by statins (cholesterol-lowering drugs) producing drug companies to discredit natural medicine and to safe-guard their own interest with synthetic analogues rather than exposing scientific truths.

Another natural food product you can also use to lower blood cholesterol is red yeast rice or its extract. Again I cannot vouch for its safety with constant and long term use.

In fact with so many brands of red yeast extracts in the market, and by using different production methods, we do not even know how much would be its effective and safe pharmacopoeial dose. 

Without this knowledge it is difficult to titrate even for a blanket dose for everybody, let alone the required dosage for different patients. The bioactive principle in red yeast extracted from rice by fermentation is from a type of yeast called Monascus purpureus.

In fact red yeast rice extract is used in Traditional Chinese Medicine for lowering cholesterol and improving blood circulation. It is used not just as a medicine, but also as a food colouring substance and a food preservative by the Chinese.  Perhaps with its wide usage as a food substance for so long, it may be safe.

It contains several natural ingredients such as monacolin K   and other monocolins, sterols, isoflavones, and monounsaturated fatty acids, all of which may have a role in the control of cholesterol synthesis.   

Incidentally, the key ingredient in red yeast rice extract called monacolin K  is actually a cholesterol lowering drug called as lovastatin. This makes matters complicated whether or not to consider red yeast rice extract a natural medicine or a synthetic drug like Mevacor that contains lovastatin in which drug companies would an interest.

Lovastatin is a class of cholesterol-inhibiting drugs called HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors, or just “statins”  

This is always the case, a loggerhead between medical researchers and drug companies unless the study is funded by the drug companies, and the suppression of undesirable data is the drug companies’ prerogative

There is always a conflict of interest. Many of the studies conflict with each other until they are so confusing  even to us as researches, doctors and nutritionists. I remember as a student at QE College,  University of London our professors there, and also our visiting and external examiners from the University of Cambridge told us that a lot of researchers, who are unable to find anything new on their own, will their spend time repeating the work of others to contradict the findings of their predecessors.

When we heard this, it was like a professional joke or professional thief to us. This is very unethical as their findings will confuse us as their counterparts. We will not know whom to believe in order for us as doctors and nutritionists to advise our patients because we too are confused and uncertain.

There are of course other alternatives other than statins, mok yee or black fungus, or guggul. They include garlic, fish oil (omega-3 fatty acids), oats and oatmeals, maize, Japanese needle mushrooms, among others. Their discussions include huge, huge chapters in nutrition and metabolism, including nutraceuticals, with tens of thousands of references, and we shall not go into them.  

I would like at least to advise that cholesterol is a natural steroid-like substance and their presence and metabolites often function as signalling molecules for nervous and steroid functions and its phospholipids are components of cell membranes. They are very important for our survival and should not be disturbed  

Cholesterol production and its homeostasis is a highly regulated metabolic progression, and this should not be disturbed using statins and other drugs including natural compounds

In fact there are new evidences emerging over the last two decades that cholesterol has no relationship with any cardiovascular events. 

I think I do agree with these mounting amount of published papers based on my own 25 years experiences signing tens of thousands of request reports on cholesterol analysis sent by doctors from hundreds of hospitals, and what the doctors wrote there in their clinical notes along with their lab requests. I too found NO relation between what we found and what the clinicians suspect. This was not just a few cases, but ran into tens of thousands of analytical results in my 25 years work as a medical and nutrition researcher signing all these diagnostic reports for the hospitals  

If you really need to bring down cholesterol levels, your best strategy is your own  lifestyle choices, including obesity and overeating especially on a diet high in saturated and trans fats, managing your weight, quit smoking if you are a smoker, and reducing stress and anger as these releases stress hormones and free radicals in their breakdown; these causes oxidative stress on the already existing cholesterol especially the low density lipoproteins causing them to become gummy and sticky to stick onto to the intima (lining) of your blood vessels.

  

I need to stop here as I need to spend time to read several new editions of my text books  on molecular medicine I bought over the last two years, but more importantly,  practice on my violin which I have not done so since hospitalization for 5 months last year for venous stasis leg ulcers

Even a professional concert violinist practices 8 hours a day before a concert, and as a hobbyist violinist, I have not done a single hour of practice nearly year now. Violin is the hardest instrument to play requiring several bowing techniques and high fingering positions. I need to practice them daily.

jb lim