Is Policosanol A Placebo?

Policosanol is a compound traditionally extracted from Cuban sugar cane. There is an embargo on Cuban products being exported to the US so companies here derived a compound using beeswax, wheat germ oil or rice bran wax.

In 2002 a large study reported in the “American Heart Journal” praised policosanol for its ability to reduce cholesterol. In this study there were approximately 3,000 participants with over 60 trails for a period of two months up to two years using the form of extract made from Cuban sugarcane wax.

The review in the American Heart Journal reported that 10mg daily doses of policosanol were as effective at lowering total cholesterol or LDL cholesterol as the satin drugs zocor and provastin. Dr. Mark Stengler reported that he was puzzled by these findings because his patients were not having the same positive results.

Quote: “I noticed that my patients who took policosanol seldom acheived the expected cholesterol improvements no matter what brand we tried”.

Dr. Stengler concluded these studies must be wrong or that the compounds used here were not similar enough to the Cuban extract. New studies are now coming out that confirm Dr. Stengler’s suspicions, the most notiable is a German study. The participants using policosanol had a decrease of less than 10% in their LDL cholesterol; the placebo group had a reduction of 8%.

Similar studies conducted between 2004 and 2006 in Canada, the Netherlands and South Africa also found policosanol ineffective.

Why such a difference in the results found?

The original studies were funded by Cuba’s National Center for Science as well as founding the company “Dalmer Laboratories” to market policosanol.

Source: May issue of Bottom Line Natural Healing

Category: Product Analysis