Podcast 268: Herbalists’ Views on the Top-Selling Herbs (Part 10): Valerian, Pumpkin, Goji, Red Yeast Rice

8 December, 2025

It’s time we resumed our exploration of the top-selling herbs as supplements in the US! We’re three-quarters of the way through the main list. (Remember we’re working with the 2023 data for the purposes of this series, but I gave some updates about the 2024 Herbal Market Report data in the last installment.)

Our herbs today are valerian, pumpkin (seed [oil]), goji berry, and red yeast rice. There are some fun details about each of these, including…

  • how to predict if valerian will keep you awake instead of helping you sleep,
  • why certain medicinal seed oils are promoted in a gender-based dichotomy,
  • who should not take goji, and
  • why everyone should probably avoid red yeast rice supplements.

Listen for the full story.

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26. Valerian – Valeriana officinalis

27. Pumpkin – Cucurbita pepo

  • Pepo (U. S. P.)—Pumpkin Seed in King’s American Dispensatory, 1898 – This entry includes some interesting comparisons to other members of the melon family, such as cucumber and watermelon.

28. Goji Berry – Lycium spp.

29. Red Yeast Rice – Oryza sativa (w/ Monascus purpureus)

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Episode Transcript

Ryn (00:15):
Hi. I’m Ryn. And I’m here at Commonwealth Holistic Herbalism in Boston, Massachusetts and on the internet everywhere, thanks to the power of the podcast. Okay. Well, it’s time at last to continue my series on the herbalists’ views on the top-selling herbs. If you don’t recall, because it’s been a minute since the last installment, this is a sequence where I’m taking a look at the list of the top-selling herbs put out by the American Herbal Products Association and the American Botanical Council each year. And going down them and just saying hey, what does an herbalist actually think about these things? Yes, they’re popular. Yes, they’re bestsellers. They’re out there everywhere. Many people have heard of them and work with them. But what are they really? And what are they beyond the pigeonhole, the superficial tag, the selling point that makes them famous as they are today? What’s the history of these plants? What have they been considered to be able to do in the past or in different times and places, as opposed to what’s the marketed version of them today? Sometimes these things line up really closely. Sometimes they diverge really wildly. So, that’s what we’re interested in exploring.

Ryn (01:27):
Today on this episode we’re going to be talking about valerian, about pumpkin – seed, especially – about goji berry, and about red yeast rice. Okay. Well, I have some stuff to say about those ones. But before I dive in, I just want to give you a quick reminder that I and we here at Commonwealth Holistic Herbalism, we are not doctors. We are herbalists and holistic health educators. So, the ideas discussed in this podcast do not constitute medical advice. Remember that no state or federal authority licenses herbalists in the US where we live, and so these discussions are for educational purposes only. We want to remind you that good health doesn’t mean the same thing for everyone. Good health doesn’t exist out there as some objective standard. It’s influenced by your individual needs, experiences, and goals. So, keep in mind we’re not attempting to present a single, dogmatic right way that you should adhere to. Everyone’s body is different. And the things we’re talking about may or may not apply directly to you. But they will give you some new ideas to think about and some new information to research and to experiment with further. Finding your way to better health is both your right and your own personal responsibility. That doesn’t mean you’re alone on the journey, and it doesn’t mean that you’re to blame for your current state of health. But it does mean that the final decision when considering any course of action, whether it’s discussed on the internet or prescribed by a physician, that’s always your choice to make.

#26 Valerian: A Sedative, Sometimes

Ryn (02:54):
All right, let’s dive right in. Let’s talk about valerian, Valeriana officinalis. So, valerian is one of these herbs that most normal people or lay people have heard of. And they’ll say ah, an herb for sleep. Yes, yes, it’s true, yes. But as I think you’ll not be surprised to learn by this point in our sequence, it’s actually a lot more than that. So, let’s just start with the sleep remedies and get those out of the way. So, valerian does have an effective sedative action, and it is one of the herbs that we consider to be hypnotic. That’s an action term that we use in herbalism to mean that this is a plant that can actually put you to sleep if you take a sufficient dose of it, right? So, plants in this group include hops, wild lettuce, California poppy, our friend valerian here. It’s not to say that any amount of any of these herbs is going to knock you out immediately, right? You take a drop or two of these, some people you take a dropper or more, and you don’t fall asleep immediately. But with the right dose for your particular body, it’ll put you into that state of your mind and your activation, and it will help you to sleep really well. These are essentially sedative herbs that are just strong enough at the right dose that they can actually put you all the way into sleep. Yeah. So, valerian is indeed a frequent ingredient in sleep formulae, over-the-counter remedies, and things like that. And it also turns up in anti-anxiety remedies. And this is really for the exact same reason. That it can soothe and diminish those feelings of agitation that might be keeping you up or just making you uncomfortable. So, in either context it can be very helpful.

Ryn (04:35):
Now listen, any herbalist will tell you that valerian is not the best sleep herb for everybody. There’s a well-known sort of it’s often called a paradoxical reaction. We could interrogate that label a little bit, but it’s called this paradoxical reaction to valerian. And it occurs in somewhere between 2% and 10% of the people who take it. Depending on your population group it might be a little bit more. But what happens is they feel stimulated by valerian instead of feeling sedated by it. So, my teachers have passed on stories, and I’ll just kind of tell it the way they did, right? So, it goes yeah, well, I had this student. And we were learning about nervine herbs and herbs to calm you and help people sleep. And they were feeling really interested in valerian and really hoping that it would help them sleep because they had terrible sleep problems. And so they started taking valerian tincture the night after that lecture. And they were like oh, yeah, I’m still kind of restless. They took a little bit more. And they went to bed, and then they tossed and turned for a while, and took a little bit more. And they did that over and over again all night long until the sun started to rise because they were one of the people who was reacting to valerian as a stimulant instead of as a sedative. And they just kept going at it. And they were like no, no, valerian’s going to help me sleep, until it was morning time, right?

Ryn (05:58):
So, I was fortunate enough to learn and hear stories like that before I ever started recommending valerian to everybody. So, I can’t pass on one from my direct experience, but I feel like that story really illustrates the issue very clearly, right? And it also makes me think about times when you hear about an analysis or a study being done on valerian, and you find mediocre results, right? So now look, some of the sleep studies on valerian show very clear, very effective results across a broad enough population that it it’s renowned. But sometimes you get results, and you’re like ah, this doesn’t look so good. I think if we dig into the data, we might find some people who it really didn’t work for, some people it really worked for, and a few others kind of scattered in the middle. But that makes it all cash out to a thing that’s like eh, is this even worth it? Is this even doing anything? So, this happens a lot with herbs. It’s not just valerian, but variations on that story will happen often.

Ryn (06:53):
So, here’s the thing about the valerian and the paradoxical or the inverse response is that it’s not actually random. And essentially, people with hot constitutions are much more likely to have that reaction to taking valerian. I always advise people who are new to valerian, test this out on a weekend afternoon, Sunday afternoon, whatever. Sometime where if it does make you sleepy, and you take a nice long afternoon nap, no problem, great. Or if you get stimulated by it, then you can burn off that energy before bedtime. You can get up, and do some chores, and run around, and chase the dog, and have a fun time, right? And now you know. You know valerian for you is an effective hypnotic, or it is a bit stimulating. And then you can just work with it in the appropriate context for you. Great.

Ryn (07:44):
Okay. It’s worth saying that the main stimulation effect of valerian is to increase blood flow up to your brain. And actually, when we look at some of the historical actions and reasons herbalists would call on valerian, several of them had to do with deficient cerebral circulation or cerebral anemia in the old language. And so that’s an effect that valerian has. Now, this is part of how it soothes people and helps them to relax. It can even relieve certain kinds of headaches to get more blood flow up into the head. That would be a headache where the person has a pale face, maybe a feeling of cold, right? And they work with valerian, and they get some relief. Not all headaches respond well to valerian in that way, right? Just like not all people who need help sleeping respond well to valerian. So, we’re being attentive to energetics, signs of heat, signs of cold. But for a similar reason, that increased cerebral blood flow, valerian can also cause intense dreams. And if you’re interested in dream work, valerian is an herb to experiment with for sure, not only to help you sleep, but because it may enhance your dreaming.

Actions of Valerian & Smell Considerations

Ryn (08:59):
Okay? So, the heating effect of valerian, because it is a warming herb. And that’s unusual for hypnotics. That’s unusual for sleep herbs, right? You think of skullcap, passionflower, betony, hops, wild lettuce. All of those are cool to cold in nature, but valerian is warming, right? And so that warming effect and that sometimes-stimulating effect of valerian can help us understand one of its most famous pairings, right? A pair, a little duo of herbs to work together, which is valerian plus hops. Valerian is warming. It’s upward moving in nature. And hops is the opposite. It’s cooling, cold actually, and downward moving. And the two of these complement each other. They mitigate the potential that the other herb has for some kind of an adverse effect, right? Valerian could overstimulate certain people, hops could depress certain people, right? So, if you’re ever making a sleep formula, and you don’t know, you don’t have a specific person in mind that you’re going to give it to, right? This is a sleep formula for the entire family when we go on a camping trip. And for a few friends who I’ve never met before, right, like the kids’ friends or whatever. You’re making a sleep formula, but you don’t know exactly who it’s for. My advice would be to combine valerian and hops and mix them rather than to pick one and just run with it, right? The combo of hops plus valerian is a better remedy for a larger group of people than either one of those herbs is all by itself. Yep.

Ryn (10:32):
Okay. So, let’s get outside of the bed. Let’s get outside of sleep, right? Valerian isn’t only an herb that we can take for sleep purposes. It’s a really good nervine for people who run on the cold side. You can absolutely be cold and anxious, right? A lot of times when people are learning energetic herbalism, and they’re attaching qualities to conditions or states people enter, they get very binary about it. Anxiety is hot, depression is cold. And most often things fall out that way. But there’s absolutely hot depression and cold anxiety out there in the world. So, valerian is an excellent herb for people who are nervous, anxious, agitated, but also physically and constitutionally running cold. If we adjust the dose appropriately right, we find the right amount for that individual. Or if we formulate valerian together with some friends. Like maybe rosemary or tulsi would make sense for this cold but anxious individual we’re talking about. Or sage, right, that could all fit in there really nicely. Valerian can be really, really good to help them out, and it won’t have to induce that kind of sleepiness during the daytime.

Ryn (11:47):
Another element about valerian that you find, especially when you dig into historical writing about it, is that Valerian has a long history of application for epilepsy and seizure disorders. And again, this tracks with that relaxant activity. It also tracks with that increased blood circulation to the brain, maybe improving conditions there and reducing that kind of short circuit of the electrical storm that is a seizure, right? And then okay, so that’s a traditional application for it. And it is possible even with people who are medicated for epilepsy today that they might work with valerian, or wood betony, or skullcap, or other herbs to help them. We can sort that through depending on the full drug list for the individual. But just to say that there are often circumstances in which that can be done safely. Yes. Okay. And again, valerian, we focus so much on the nervine, the emotional, the nervous system aspects of it, but it does have impacts on digestion. It is a warming digestive verb. It’s a bit of a carminative, right? Just in the same way that hops is a bitter herb and has digestive action. But we rarely think of that first, right, but it is in there. And that warmth of valerian here is also moving through the whole kind of belly and into the pelvis too. So, valerian can be helpful for menstrual stagnation too, slow, cold pattern menstrual discomfort. All right.

Ryn (13:15):
Now, there is a limiting factor around valerian in tea or decoction preparations, which is the smell. Valerian root is sometimes described as smelling like dirty socks, or old cheese, or cat pee, or something pretty unpleasant like that. So, decoctions of valerian root are not the most ingratiating thing that you can make at home. Yeah, tinctures and capsules are much more acceptable, or at least a tea blend that has several pleasant-smelling herbs mixed into it to try to cover up that scent. Now, we humans may not love the smell of valerian, at least most of us. There are always some people out there who are just like no, this is nice. And everyone kind of looks at them funny. But you do you. You do you. If you love it, love it. That’s fine.

Ryn (14:06):
You know, who else loves it? Your cat, your cat. Many cats really like valerian root. They like the smell, they like to chew on it. They play with it just in the same way they do with catnip. They’ll roll and play and maybe run around for a bit. And then they’ll chill out, and they’ll purr, and they’ll nap, and have a good time. So, especially if your cat is just not interested in catnip, try valerian. She might like it better. She might like it a lot. Okay. Now, all of the commercial products you’re going to find with valerian are going to be focused on sleep. And they’re going to be made with the root as well. But I have really enjoyed valerian flower tincture. It’s a very mild herb or part of the herb, right? In comparison to the root, it’s nowhere near as potent. But it is calming. It is soothing. It has a bit of an uplifting quality to it, a little exhilarant aspect. I really like valerian flower. Again, nowhere near as potent. It smells a lot nicer, okay? And it is quite effective for when you just need a little nudge in that direction. Okay, so there’s valerian for you.

#27 Pumpkin Seed: Gendering Herbs & Actions

Ryn (15:23):
Let’s go ahead and move on, and we’re going to talk about pumpkin. And you know, when we talk about pumpkin here as an herbal remedy, of course pumpkin itself is a food, and it’s a vehicle for sugar and pumpkin spices in the pie. But in terms of herbal remedies, it’s primarily the pumpkin seeds and the pumpkin seed oil, which is what we’re going to be finding or talking about. So, many products are sold, and they’re either a pumpkin seed extract, or a pumpkin seed oil concentrate, or something along those lines. And when you look at what they’re marketed for, almost all of them are being sold as a prostate health supplement. I have noticed that there’s a very strong tendency to basically gender these herbal oils in the marketplace, right? And you know, that just tracks with some general trends we find in herbal supplement products in the marketplace. It’s like here’s a men’s health formula. Here’s a women’s health formula. If I ran an herb company, I would kind of love to make a little joke. Which would be to make like a men’s health formula and a women’s health formula but have all the same herbs in them. Put saw palmetto, and lady’s mantle, and borage and put them all in there together because they do often make sense for the same purposes. But you go to the store, and you’ll find evening primrose and borage seed oil, and they’re all marketed towards women, and menopause complaints, and things like that. And then you’ll see pumpkin seed products and saw palmetto oil-based products. And they’re all there for prostate health, and male issues, and stuff like that. So, if you’ll recall earlier comments in this series about saw palmetto or other materials where you’ve heard us talk about that, you’ll already know that we find these divisions to be spurious. They’re not meaningful in a physical sense in the world, right? They’re meaningful for marketing purposes, yeah. But in terms of what they do in the body, there’s a ton of crossover between what pumpkin seed, saw palmetto, borage, evening primrose, what they contribute to the system. That’s not to say there’s nothing unique about each one, but that their Venn diagrams have a lot of overlap, right?

Ryn (17:32):
So, let’s just make the closest comparison though, like between pumpkin seed oil and saw palmetto oil, right? So like saw palmetto, pumpkin seeds contain phytosterols, and fatty acids, and also some amino acids, which all serve together synergistically to help the prostate and other reproductive organs by reducing inflammation and by improving their functionality, right, their ability to do the jobs they do. Eating pumpkin seeds regularly or adding a supplement to your routine is a rational step to take alongside work with saw palmetto or nettle root, which is another very effective herb for similar pelvic issues, right? So, this could be about BPH, benign prostatic hyperplasia. It could be about other related prostate issues. Any situation where there’s inflammation, fluid stagnation around there, absolutely. But it could also be in a body with a uterus and ovaries, right? It could be about PCOS or other conditions of stagnation and inflammation down in the pelvis. Get them all in there together, get them on a rotation. Each one has something to contribute. And like I say, there’s a ton of crossover. All right.

Ryn (18:52):
Now, if we look back in history a little bit, we like to look in and see what the eclectics and the physiomedicalist schools were doing when they were dominant in the US back in the 1800s essentially. They both considered pumpkin seed to be a soothing remedy for the urinary tract actually, citing its application for “scalding of urine, spasmodic afflictions of the urinary passages”. And then also even things like gonorrhea, which would have similar symptoms, right? So, that’s just to say, and that’s in addition to their attention to the way that it can help with prostate, uterus, ovarian issues, and all those kind of things that I’ve already mentioned, right? So, they were seeing all of that plus the urinary system. And so what we have here is a genitourinary herb. It can operate on the whole region, the whole area. Part of this is because of mineral content, right? And especially when we think about urinary function, which is from the kidneys on down. And so the kidneys are really responsive to changes or deficits in mineral content in the body. Pumpkin seeds are rich in magnesium, zinc, a bunch of other minerals as well, and then a bunch of fiber, right? When you eat them, you do get the benefits of fiber. Which are yeah, bulking fiber to move the feces through you and to carry away wastes that got excreted out of your liver, carry those out of the body. But there’s a mix of fibers in pumpkin seeds. And so some of them are also going to be a little prebiotic or having some benefits along those lines too.

Ryn (20:29):
Now, when you work with a capsule, or even if you just work with tablespoonfuls of the pumpkin seed oil. If it’s the expressed oil, well, that’s not going to have the fiber content in it, right? But it does have a decent presentation of the other good things in the seeds. Some of the mineral content comes through there, the phytosterol content, that kind of thing is going to get into you. Okay. Now, another thing that the pumpkin seeds have been famous for throughout history – and even back into ethnobotanical practices as well – has been that the pumpkin seeds can combat worms. We’re talking about intestinal worms here, right? So, various extracts of pumpkin seed and preparations of pumpkin seed have been found both in vitro and in vivo – like in living animals – to be anthelmintic. That’s a word that means that it can expel or eliminate worms from the GI tract. Get those worms right out of your guts. So, there’s a number of different constituents that have been investigated for that. You’ll see a lot of writing on the internet about cucurbitacin in particular as a promising candidate. But it really seems pretty clear to me when I look at the studies here that as usual with herbs, there’s really a synergy between multiple elements, including boring ones like the fiber, right? Sometimes boring stuff helps the job to get done.

Ryn (21:53):
But yeah, it is actually true that pumpkin seeds can aid in the elimination of intestinal worms. We have some direct experience with this. When our dog, Elsie, was brand new, which is now like 13 years ago. When she first came to us, she’d come up on a transport from the south when we adopted her. And she arrived with some tapeworms going on, little, dancing, white critter things in the poop. Ugh, not so great. And so we worked with a few different things to help her get rid of those. It wasn’t anything intense. It wasn’t anything harsh. It wasn’t a parasite cleanse. We fed her some tablespoonfuls of ground up pumpkin seed in her dinners. We mixed in a little turmeric. There were a few other things that we gave, a little garlic powder. But that was sufficient to do it. And I think that the pumpkin seeds were a major contributor to the benefit there. Also, they’re very safe to give to a dog. You don’t want to give large amounts of garlic or garlic powder to a dog. But the pumpkin seed, you can give that quite freely, and that worked out very well.

Ryn (22:56):
So yeah, and now none of this is to say that pumpkin seed is a total replacement for all antiparasitic drugs or anything like that. Sometimes those may be required. It depends on many, many factors there. But they are helpful for sure. And they’re very safe and can be made in very appealing ways. And so it’s hard to find a reason not to work with them for that purpose. Yeah. In the show notes I’m including a link to an entry in a materia medica book from 1898, just because it has some comparisons with other members of the melon family, the Cucurbitaceae. So, there’s some discussion there about cucumber and watermelon, and I encourage you to read through that just for the comparison. And the way that we’re again, seeing a similarity within plant family. Those are often really helpful for you as you learn herbalism.

#28 Goji Berry: A Super Chew Berry With Adaptogenic Qualities

Ryn (23:47):
All right, so let’s move on. Let’s go to goji berry next. So, these are lyceum species. Oftentimes Lycium barbarum, but there are a few other varieties that you’ll come across now and then. And they’re all close enough in activity that it is okay to work with them interchangeably. So, goji berries are berries, and that might be enough. We can apply everything else we know about blueberry, and cranberry, and blackberry, and raspberry, and mulberry. And we can attach almost all of that directly to goji berry also, right? Sure. Call them a superfood if you want. But the open secret here is that that’s a fair tag to apply to basically any of the edible berries at all. Because they’re all rich in those pigment compounds, anthocyanins and friends, things that serve as antioxidants. They regulate inflammation. They support the integrity of your blood vessels, your eye health, a whole bunch of other things throughout your body, right? So, goji isn’t necessarily better than blueberry, or bilberry, or cranberry, or aronia berry, or any of the others. But if you love goji berry, and it tastes as particularly good to you, go for it. Enjoy it.

Ryn (24:59):
I will say that goji stands out among the berries because it has the adaptogen quality to it, right? So, this is not one of the stimulating adaptogens like ginseng or rhodiola. It’s a restorative adaptogen. It’s more like jiaogulan. In traditional Chinese medicine they don’t use the word adaptogen. I mean, maybe they do nowadays, right? But in traditional aspects of Chinese medicine, they would call this a yin tonic and a blood tonic. And that places it very squarely in the realm of restorative herbs to rebuild these forces of nourishment, and lubrication, and soothing, and all of that into your system. So, that’s where goji lives. That’s its adaptogen niche that it fits into, right? In particular, I find goji really, really excellent as a post-workout recovery aid. I’m putting a link in my show notes to a formula that I’ve created called everyday yeah. And that includes a bunch of goji, and some evergreens, and a few other adaptogenic friends mixed in there. It’s one that I work with very often when I’ve got a lot of physical labor to do over a period of time. So, you can check that out. There’s something about goji that I did want to mention though. And for the other elements I’m talking about, you can take it any way you like. You can throw them into a decoction. You can cook them until they totally dissolve. And actually, that might be one of the better ways to work with goji berry. But you can also throw a handful in when you’re cooking rice. You can put them into any meal that you’re going to consume. And they’ll soften and become very easy to chew through and everything.

Ryn (26:47):
But when you work with the goji berries raw, there’s an actual benefit to the chewiness that they have. Goji berries can be very, very, very, very, very chewy. And it can take a lot of jaw muscle work to get through a big handful of them. And this is actually a somewhat oblique benefit of goji berries, right? So, here’s why. Chewing on tougher foods is really healthy for bone development and tooth integrity in the mouth and in the jaw, as well as the muscular development and the proper shaping of soft structures in your mouth, in your palate, even up into your sinuses believe it, and all the way through your airway, right? So, in modern society, along with a couple of other contributors okay, a diet of primarily soft foods. Think about ultra-processed food, which you could maybe not even chew it at all and just kind of swallow it down, whatever. A diet of soft foods is one of the reasons why sleep apnea, crowded teeth, crooked teeth, and sinus issues are so common in modern people. If you happen to have read the book Breath by the author James Nestor, you’ll have seen that there’s an entire chapter in this book about breathing, which is focused on chewing because of exactly what I’m saying. That the shift towards more and more soft pre-processed food dominating the diets is one among several contributors to these breathing problems, restrictions in the airway, sleep apnea, and other issues that connect to breathing that people have to deal with.

Ryn (28:30):
So, if you’re already fully-grown, and your jaws are already kind of cramped, and there’s not a lot of room in your airway. It’s not like chewing on goji berries every day is going to totally resolve that. But you’re also not totally stuck where you are either. And doing this kind of workout in your jaw and in your mouth is actually going to get you a little bit of space, a little bit of benefit in those problems. And so if you chew your way through a half a cup of raw, dried goji berries, that is a solid masticatory workout. Let’s pronounce that word very carefully, okay? Mastication, chewing, yes, yes. All right. So, that’s what I wanted to add on that one. One other note though about goji, and this is kind of on a down note, is that it is in the nightshade family, the Solanaceae. And that means that it should not be consumed by people who have sensitivities to that family of foods. So, some people react badly to potatoes, tomatoes, bell peppers, eggplant, and other members of the nightshade family. If that’s true for you, if that gives you joint pain or migraines or other discomforts like that. I’m sorry, but goji berry is not an herb that you should work with. Also by the way, ashwagandha and cayenne, and while we’re out at tobacco, those are all members of the nightshade family. And people who have a strong sensitivity to that group of foods, they should also avoid those herbs. So, that’s kind of a thing about goji that you want to keep some attention on. And somebody might not know that it’s in that family. They’re just like well, whatever, it’s a berry. It is fine. Hawthorn berry is fine. Blueberry is fine. I should be okay, right? but it does have that family connection, so be aware of that.

#29 Red Yeast Rice: A “Natural” Statin with Cautions

Ryn (30:19):
Okay, the last one for today is red yeast rice. Hmm. So, botanically, this is Oryza sativa together with Monascus purpureus. The Oryza is the rice. And then Monascus is a microbe, a yeast that’s cultivated on the rice. The microbe produces a compound, which is described as a natural statin. It’s called Monacolin K. And it can take different forms, but one of the forms it takes is chemically identical to the drug lovastatin. So, that’s one of the statin category of drugs. These are medications that are used to rapidly and profoundly lower somebody’s cholesterol, essentially by inhibiting your body’s capacity to produce cholesterol in the normal way. So, those are very common drugs in, well, American culture anyway. And the attraction that exists in the marketplace, the attraction to red yeast rice is let me get a natural statin. Let me get a natural version of that drug.

Ryn (31:29):
So let’s say a few things about this. So, first of all, let’s look at tradition. Red yeast rice is a traditional food, right? So, in Japan and other areas in East Asia it is a tradition for people to cultivate rice in such a way that this particular yeast grows on it, and to allow that to happen, and let it turn red, and eat that as food. But modern supplement forms of this product, they’re representing a significant concentration of those active constituents. And they provide physiologically relevant and active amounts of them. Whereas if you’re eating that traditional food preparation, yes, a little bit of Monacolin k is coming into your body but not enough to really alter anything in your system, not anything significant, right? Now, the issue with this is manyfold. First of all, maybe it’s worth saying when there’s a plant that produces a particular high-potency compound, or in this case a plant plus a yeast working together to produce this high-potency compound. It’s often the case that you would be better off working with the purified pharmaceutical version of that agent than working with the plant-derived one. An example is atropine. So, this comes from Atropa belladonna, deadly nightshade, right? Think about the nightshade family we’re talking about a moment ago. So, atropine is a very powerful alkaloid found in that. And it can have intense effects on your nervous system and through that into your heart rate and some other things as well. So, historically people did work with belladonna for certain purposes. And they were essentially working with preparations that would provide amounts of atropine, and that would do the jobs they were looking for.

Ryn (33:18):
But it’s tricky, and you could get it wrong. And it could be wrong because the particular patch you harvested from makes twice as much atropine as the one that you’re used to. Or there’s a particular year where the conditions in that plant are such that it makes more or less than what you’re used to. And so your remedy is stronger or weaker than it was last time you prepared it. And so it’s very, very tricky to get that dialed in. With a modern laboratory we can purify, and we can measure very precise amounts of these powerful constituents. And we can provide them at a level that is effective but also safe, and that we can handle that carefully. So, I have to say that I would put Monacolin K from red yeast rice into that kind of category. If you want to work with that agent, just work with lovastatin, right? You can get a very precisely titrated amount, and you can know that you’re getting the same amount every time. The concentrations of Monacolin K in red yeast rice supplements are highly variable. Even with modern controls and methods for analyzing and detecting the proper amount and making sure that we have some kind of a standardized process to get similar amounts in each batch we make, it can get wild, right?

Ryn (34:37):
And so that’s a danger when it comes to these supplements. You might think you’re getting X amount of Monacolin K, and you might be getting twice as much. So, that’s not ideal, right? The European Union actually limited red yeast rice products to contain not more than three milligrams of Monacolins per dose. That happened early this year in 2025. But later on in the year they declared that the safety of Monacolins from red yeast rice cannot be established at any level. And so the expectations are that red yeast rice products are about to be totally banned in Europe, probably sometime this year or early next year. So, that’s all around that level of variability, right, which does affect most herbal remedies we make. There are some that can be standardized and detected in a very predictable and clear way, and you can get something very consistent. With this one it’s a little harder. Part of the reason it’s harder is because it’s not just about plant production of a compound. It’s about plant plus yeast together, right, plant plus fungus together. And so you’re essentially doing a little cultivation right there in your production facility. One of the attendant dangers here is that when you want to cultivate a particular yeast, you need to make conditions that are warm and moist and have not too much light. And hey, guess who else likes to grow there? Every other yeast and a bunch of other potentially dangerous microbes. So, the danger of contamination for red yeast rice supplements is much, much higher than it is for other herbal remedies.

Ryn (36:19):
And with contamination, I’m talking about we grew the wrong microbe by accident, or we grew multiple microbes by accident, and now that is getting into our finished product. And this is not just theoretical. In 2024 there was a very high-profile string of adverse event cases, including a few deaths and some hospitalizations. And then a recall of a particular brand of red yeast rice products. This was in Japan. This was due to contamination with unintended microbes. And this was not some kind of niche brand or some crappy brand that was trying to skid under the radar, or scam people, or whatever. This was a really well-known company in Japan. So, when that happened, everybody’s ears got perked up around safety of these products and around consistency of them. And that led to several of the crackdowns in other countries and regions that we’ve seen since then. When we look at our old favorite, the Botanical Safety Handbook, they do have an entry for red yeast rice there. And they caution that first of all, red yeast rice should always be discontinued if any of the side effects of statin drugs begin to appear, such as muscle pain or weakness, fatigue, gastrointestinal symptoms or jaundice. And then they also note that if red yeast rice is taken along with a statin drug, the additive effect can increase both the pharmacological effect and the potential for adverse effects. So, that’s relevant because listen, many people are not going to have any idea that red yeast rice functions through the same kind of pharmacology as a statin drug. So, you could have somebody who had high cholesterol. Their doctor told them it was terrible bad. They got put on a statin, they’re taking it, but it’s still high. And then they think I know what I’ll do. I’ll find myself a natural supplement that will also help to lower cholesterol. And they’re going to see red yeast rice being promoted for that purpose. And it’s generally not going to be immediately obvious to somebody that it’s doing it because it contains a fungal version of the same drug that they’re taking. So, it would not be surprising or unusual for somebody to accidentally stack these things on top of each other without realizing that that’s what they’re doing. Okay.

Ryn (38:40):
So, now is the part where normally I would have a bunch of good things to say about this product. And it’s how we’ve done this sequence for every other herb that we’ve discussed. But look, I just have to say that I strongly discourage everybody from taking red yeast rice products. I don’t think it’s the most helpful agent when we’re trying to lower cholesterol with herbs and natural remedies. I don’t think that it is a wonder remedy for all people. I think that it has too high a degree of risks associated with it and several different kinds. And so I just don’t work with it, and I encourage people not to. It’s not my thing, let’s say that. So, if it’s your thing, reach out to me. I’d love to hear what draws you to it or what keeps you coming to it. But for me, I don’t think this is going to be a part of my practice or part of my recommendations or my teaching anytime soon, if ever. Okay. Well, I hope that’s not too much of a down note to end on, but that is going to be it for today. Thanks for listening. And before we go, one quick reminder. It’s December, our sale is on. So, if you go to online.commonwealthherbs.com, and you find a course, a program, anything that draws your attention, something you want to try, or something you want to give as a gift to a friend. Then you can do that. And during checkout make sure to put in the coupon code CALENDULA, and you can get 20% off of everything we’ve got. You can use it as many times as you like. You can use it for as many friends as you like. And everybody can get a bit of herbal education for the holidays. All right. That’s it. Thank you for listening. Take care of yourselves. Take care of each other. Drink some tea. And yeah, take some supplements, but let’s leave the red yeast rice on the shelf. Okay. See you again soon.

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