lower cholesterol, triglycerides, blood pressure

Some of the ingredients here for your information:

before heading into natural health products, keep in mind, statins (conventional medicine) lowers LDL by 55%. They are effective and safe for many patients.

Can be recommended: 

1. Plant Sterol - aka phytosterols, beta-sitosterol.
It doesn't let cholesterol get absorbed! However, plant sterol itself is very hard to absorb. Taking plant sterol by itself won't help you much. It has to be inside fat (ex. margarines) to work. These margarines are widely available from many supermarkets.
If you see a capsule product containing plant sterol, think again...

Overall pretty safe. If you are taking a medication called "ezetimide", this medication will block plant sterol absorption, making the plant sterol useless.

It lowers LDL mildly (6-15%) and does not change HDL.

2. Fish Oil
2-4g of EPA-DHA a day have been shown to lower triglycerides (25-30%) (but increase LDL and HDL cholesterol a bit). However, for patients with high triglycerides, they are a good choice of medicine. They have been shown to mildly decrease cardiovascular death and all-cause death in high risk patients.

Note: fish liver oil may contain little EPA/DHA and lots of Vitamin A and D. Make sure you check the vitamin A dose and not to over dose on vitamin A. It can be dangerous to take too much vitamins.

Safety concern! Fish Oil will increase LDL by a little bit. High dose (ex. 3g/day) can cause bleeding! If you are taking aspirin, warfarin or other blood thinning medication, be cautious and consult a licensed health care professional. BUY trust-worthy products (ones with NPN number). Bad products can have quality problems.

3. Coenzyme Q (CoQ)
Have been shown to decrease blood pressure. But there are not that much evidence. More evidence is needed to say for sure whether CoQ works or not.
CoQ has been used widely in Japan for heart failure. Health Canada allows the claim "helps to maintain and support cardiovascular health".

Safety concern! CoQ is safe. If you are taking warfarin, be cautious. CoQ may reduce warfarin's affect.


THINK again before you try: (not recommended)

Red Yeast Rice: the active ingredient of this product is lovastatin! Lovastatin, a conventional statin drug is a purified version of red yeast rice!
Red yeast rice can contain toxins due to improper manufacturing, ex. citrinin that can cause kidney damage. Purification process of lovastatin as a drug removes impurities.

Basically, if you want to try red yeast rice... why don't you try a normal statin. If you are on a statin already, this is CERTAINLY not a good product for you.

Flaxseed Oil: 
Whole flaxseed contains flaxseed oil, lots of fiber and a class of chemical called lignans. Flaxseed oil only has the oil part (mostly ALA). Flaxseed OIL has NOT been shown to reduce LDL cholesterol! Health Canada does NOT allow claims for LDL cholesterol either!
Whole flaxseeds however, have been shown to reduce LDL mildly and Health Canada allows the claim that it "reduce blood lipid levels".

So... if you want to use flaxseed to lower LDL cholesterol, eat whole flaxseeds from bread, etc and NOT flaxseed oil.