Lowering cholesterol with natural supplements - What is safe?

Ezetimide has been in the news recently. When I started rosuvastatin three years ago the benefits were minimal. After my doctor added ezetimibe as a "booster to make the statin more effective before we increase the statins" my ldl and total cholesterol (100) dropped immediately. 3 years later I learned my calcified plaque score is off the charts, however, the blessing is the calcification rather than obstruction. I fought statins for 20 years and now believe they saved my life. Ezetemibe kept my statin dosage low and I've had zero side effects.
https://www.indiatoday.in/health/story/combining-two-cholesterol-lowering-drugs-statins-ezetimibe-could-reduce-heart-attack-stroke-cases-2700425-2025-03-28

You may want to read this - https://files.nccih.nih.gov/s3fs-public/Red_Yeast_Rice_11-30-2015.pdf

I believe some statins are from RYR, but not all.

Thanks for the link to this study. I've been on a statin for more than 25 years and ezetemibe added about 15 years ago. The combination lowered my total cholesterol from 423 to about 178 and LDL from 250 to around 100. Great decrease but family genes said not good enough, so last year Repatha was added to the mix. Total cholesterol down to 87 and LDL at 17 now.

For me, it’s really clear I tested it over 40 years: eat more fatty fishes - if you can like salmon, sardines, tuna, yellowtail and the white meats. Introduce more fruits and vegetables and whole grains. Don’t eat fat, skin, dark meat, red meat That took down my stubborncholesterol within a couple months.
And for the triglycerides: get rid of all refined carbohydrates and replace with whole grains, legumes, and complex carbohydrates. This skin mean replacing your white rice with red or brown rice as an example. Replacing white potatoes with sweet potatoes or rose potatoes. Replacing pasta with brown rice pasta and introducing all kinds of beans and legumes into your diet. Make sure you at least do some light exercising even if it’s walking for 20 or 30 minutes at least four times a week. Then you can cheat once in a while with a couple cookies or a little dark chocolate. But if you still good habits into your week, the little treats will not affect you. I had had model triglycerides for 40 years and then I got IBS which changed my eating habits and when I introduced the refined carbohydrates into my diet, my triglycerides shot up 75%. So now I’m working on bringing them back down I expect great improvement when I test next in three months!

yes I went from 40 mg to 20 mg of rosuvastatin after adding ezetimibe and my lipid levels remained in the low range.

This may sound silly but statins and red yeast affect liver numbers. I switched my week day breakfast to oatmeal with blueberries, strawberries, black berries and bananas topped with cinnamon. My cholesterol has stayed steady for years. I started in the high 260+ and now the numbers are around 169 . Needless to say I lost a bit of weight along the way too. I do like to walk so I try to make it a habit and try to eat well, but like everyone I have a few foods and snacks I can say no to.