Cholesterol: an Indian cure works in US lab

Moore’s team found the steroid guggulsterone, the active agent in the guggul extract, blocks the activity of the farnesoid X receptor (FXR) on cells. FXR helps regulate cholesterol by affecting levels of bile acids, which are produced from cholesterol and released by the liver.

‘‘Bile acids are the only way that cholesterol has to get out of the body,’’ Moore said in a telephone interview. ‘‘We knew that FXR was a key regulator of cholesterol metabolism.’’

Moore looked for compounds known to lower cholesterol whose mechanism of action was not understood. ‘‘I spent quite a lot of time clicking around the Internet,’’ he said. He found guggulsterone, along with niacin — a B vitamin prescribed for cholesterol patients — and red wine. Red wine and niacin were not strongly enough involved with FXR to interest him, but gugulipid, available in health food stores in the United States, was.

Tests in mice showed a guggul extract lowers cholesterol by blocking the effects of FXR. ‘‘We put mice on a high cholesterol diet for a week and measured cholesterol levels in the liver,’’ said Moore, who worked with colleagues at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.

‘‘In normal mice you feed them cholesterol and the cholesterol level in the liver goes up, but if you feed them cholesterol and give them guggulsterone at the same time, the cholesterol levels stay the same,’’ he said.

Moore, who takes statin drugs to lower his own cholesterol, tried guggul.

‘‘I was curious about whether it would work with statins, which I was already taking. It dropped my total serum cholesterol by 10 %,’’ he said.

‘‘But we had some evidence that it might have effects on the activity of other drugs and I stopped taking it.’’

Other claims for guggulipid are that it can help you lose weight by increasing metabolism.

‘‘I was disappointed there,’’ said Moore, ‘‘It did not affect my weight.’’ (Reuters)