CHICAGO (AP) - A popular folk remedy made from a tree resin might have dangerous effects on cholesterol levels despite laboratory experiments suggesting otherwise, a study found.
The research focused on pills made from a resin extract called guggul - a medicine taken for centuries in India.
Patients who took the pills daily for eight weeks showed slight increases in low-density cholesterol, the bad kind. Six of the 67 patients who took the pills also developed an itchy red skin rash over much of their bodies.
"Based on these data, I discourage people ... from using guggul to manage their cholesterol because there are plenty of proven safe and effective therapies currently on the market," said lead researcher Philippe Szapary of the University of Pennsylvania.
His study appears in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.
Research published last year in Science magazine's electronic edition suggested guggul might be effective at controlling cholesterol levels. That research, by molecular biologist David Moore and colleagues at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, involved lab experiments in mice and showed that guggul could control cholesterol levels.
Szapary's research involved 103 Philadelphia-area adults with high cholesterol. They were divided into groups who took daily doses of dummy pills; a standard 1,000-milligrams of guggul-containing pills; or 2,000 milligrams of guggul pills.
Low-density cholesterol levels rose an average of nearly four points in the standard-dose guggul group and nearly five points in the high-dose group. They dropped an average of almost five points in the dummy-pill group - likely because of the "placebo effect," Szapary said. That refers to benefits patients on placebo pills sometimes get simply because they think they are taking real, effective medicine.
While the low-density cholesterol changes were slight, the researchers called them clinically significant, especially since participants already had cholesterol levels that increase the risk for cardiovascular disease.
The skin rash, a possible allergic reaction, disappeared after participants stopped taking the pills, though one required medication to get rid of it, Szapary said.
While results hinted that guggul might have some slight anti-inflammatory benefits, those results require more study, the researchers said.
Szapary said it is possible taking guggul for more than eight weeks would have different results, but he said the results reaffirm that supplements billed as natural are not necessarily risk-free.
Moore called the study "a pretty significant contribution to the question of whether this is a useful therapeutic approach" but said it's still possible that guggul works in certain subgroups of people.
Although guggul is widely used in India, Moore said differences in genetics, diet or both might explain why it didn't work in Szapary's study. The Philadelphia patients were mostly whites and ate a typical Western diet.
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