Red yeast rice

The red rice Yeast owes its name with a microscopic mushroom (Monascus purpureus) whose presence on rice produces a characteristic red pigment. It is thus the yeast which is red (and not rice).

In Asia, the red rice Yeast made before very part of the food substances: the rice fermented thanks to yeast is dried then tiny room powders some to be used as rehaussor of taste in various culinary preparations. But Chinese traditional medicine also used red rice Yeast to support a good circulation of the sang.

The red rice Yeast contains monacoline K which exerts a regulating action on cholesterol by inhibiting the synthesis of this last. It would seem that the monacoline K (or lovostatine) is chemically similar to the statines, drugs generally prescribed at the people who suffer from a excess of cholesterol .