Author(s)

Santiago de Dios^1*, Eduardo Fernandez Carrion², Javier Antona Makoshi³, Juan Jose Parra Fuertes⁴, Hector Fleites¹, Eduardo Zatarain⁵, Jose Luis Zamorano Gomez¹

¹Department of Cardiology, Hospital Universitario de la Zarzuela, Madrid, Spain.
²Department of Maths, Universidad Complutense, Madrid, Spain.
³Department of Cardiology, Hospital Conde Valle-Suchil, Madrid, Spain.
⁴Department of Cardiology, Hospital 12 de Octubre, Madrid, Spain.
⁵Department of Cardiology, Hospital Gregorio Marañón, Madrid, Spain.

Background: Long-term survival in acute coronary syndrome has increased steadily in the last decades. Follow-up studies developed in this patient clearly reveal that they are at risk of suffering a new event, placing them in a new stage, secondary prevention. Assuming this increased risk, the control target of their cardiovascular risk factors become more ambitious. In this field, control of Cholesterol levels, particularly LDL-C, has arisen as a priority objective in patients with coronary arterial disease. In this sense, management of dyslipidemia guidelines, recently recognises the role of functional food, highlighting among them is the Red Yeast Rice (RYR). The aim of the study is to establish the potential role of functional food, in secondary prevention, while determining its additional capacity to reduce LDL-C in patients that despite optimal classic treatment (maximum tolerated dose of stain plus Ezetimibe) is still out of control objectives. Results and Discussion: 88 patients were included and after 3 months of treatment with RYR, their lipid profiles were compared with the baseline. The variation of T-Col, LDL-C and Trig were statistically significant. A reduction in LDL-C was 10.73 mg/dL, which means a 10.93% of additional reduction over the standard therapy the patients were receiving. Concerning security, no relevant side effects were reported when adding RYR, even in a relevant percentage (35.4%), myalgia disappeared (especially when reducing the titrating dose of the statin). Conclusion: Adding RYR in secondary prevention patients in combination with the usual treatment, seems to be an effective alternative to optimize LDL levels and thus gets closer to the target set in the guidelines, without adding relevant side effects, and even improving tolerance to the statins.

Lipids, Nutraceuticals, Coronary Artery Disease, Secondary Prevention

de Dios, S. , Carrion, E. , Makoshi, J. , Fuertes, J. , Fleites, H. , Zatarain, E. and Gomez, J. (2022) Exploring the Role of Nutraceuticals (Red Yeast Rice) in Secondary Prevention: A New Pathway Can Be Opened. World Journal of Cardiovascular Diseases, 12, 24-29. doi: 10.4236/wjcd.2022.121003.