Re: Statin and Pu'erh

Statins found in shu cha pu-er are too few to account for toxicities as muscle damage, if 50ug (micrograms)/gram of dry leaves is the correct value. At least few milligrams of the most potent synthetic statin is needed to have a minimum effect. Considering that natural statins are far less potent than synthetic ones (i.e. more potent = less drug needed to achive the desirable effect), it is not possible to experience side effects from a normal daily use of shu cha, but this means that also the desired effect (cholesterol lowering) is quite improbable to be achieved with shu cha. Nobody has done some deep research on that up to now! Maybe shucha is really effective in lowering blood cholesterol but because of a different reason respect to its statins content. For example, it could be that shu cha taken after meals sequesters food cholesterol from being absorbed by the gut. Or maybe it is a matter of the continous and consistent daily use of shu cha that makes those statins accumulate into the body. We don’t know! I hope some research will be done on this topic. Until that moment, we should base our observations on what people experience from tea drinking: muscle pain associated with shu cha has never been reported!