What's a safe herb/alternative medicine to lower cholesterol?

Unknown: Red yeast rice, which is often recommended to lower cholesterol actually works through same pathway as statin drugs and although less effective than the pharmacological counterparts, can cause the same side effects. Eating higher quantities of fresh fruits, vegetables, and whole grains is even more important than eating less red meat.

Exercise: This is your most powerful "holistic" remedy. If you need your treatment to be botanical rather than from a drug house, there's a form of red rice yeast that actually makes lovastatin -- the same molecule as in the original statin from the hated Big Pharma.

Drhoffman.com ref: Start with dietary modifications & exercise,several botanical agents have been proved to be effective cholesterol lowering agents. Garlic preparations standardized for allign content & garlic oil.Aged garlic as garlique. Gugulipid is the standarized extract of mukul myrrh tree,native to India.Cinammon can be taken as tea. Niacin- start with 1000 mg,to avoid flushing by taking81mg of asprin 30 min