If you are over 40 years old and go to the doctor for any reason, it's more than likely that you will get your cholesterol level tested whilst you are there. That's because there is a groundswell of conventional medical thinking that everyone with blood cholesterol above a certain level simply must begin taking a drug to get the level down.

More often than not, you'll be offered a statin drug to take. That might seem a reasonable thing to do since you've been told that raised blood cholesterol is the marker that shows you have a high risk of heart disease or worse.

Now, it is true to say that high cholesterol does increase the risk of problems later on, but it is not the only one. It is also true to say that many people suffering from heart disease do not have high cholesterol.

The statin drugs, such as atorvastatin, simvastatin and rosuvastatin are among the most widely used and profitable drugs of today. You are meant to take them for the rest of your life, once you start.

The manufacturers claim they have few serious side effects, but some scientists and doctors dispute that. They say many people suffer untoward problems but simply don't put them down to the statin they are taking. And there are some side effects that are completely unrelated to the actions of the drugs.

And, the important point I am trying to make is that, before you go down the statin route, there are other ways to get your cholesterol down. You don't need to start down that path before you look at possible alternatives. And most of them do not involve drugs at all.

Relatively simple things such as changing your diet and taking a bit more exercise does it, if you work at it. And there are some things of natural origins that can help as well. They aren't drugs, but research has shown they lower cholesterol.

One of the ways of lowering blood cholesterol without drugs, is Policosanol, a mixture of fatty alcohols.

It's made from sugar cane, yams or beeswax, and works by stopping your body making cholesterol. In other words, it works at source, rather than preventing you from absorbing cholesterol from food.

Research carried out mainly by workers in Cuba, shows that it could lower LDL (bad) cholesterol by as much as 25%. It does this without causing much in the way of side effects.

Some of the trials have been long-term and reinforce the findings that it is safe and effective - an important consideration if you had to take it for the rest of your life.

The fact that cholesterol-lowering drugs are taken for life is a major consideration when you look at the side effects of the prescription drugs such as the statins. They put many people off once they read the list of side effects, or find out for themselves.

Something natural that has few side effects while still lowering cholesterol is bound to be preferable. Policosanol has a few possible problems associated with it, such as frequent urination and weight loss. And rarely it might cause insomnia, headache, rashes, and stomach upset. These are minor and none of them comes anywhere close to the serious side effects that are attributed to the statins.

Anyway, a new study reports it may not be so affective as first thought. But this work only used 145 people over 12 weeks. Even then, LDL cholesterol was lowered by around 10%.

You can argue that this study didn't prove very much. It had too few subject over too short a time to give proper results. And, was it independent or paid for by a drug company?

You have to wonder if conventional medicine is trying to get its retaliation in first. That is, before the word gets out that policosanol might be better than some expensive and profit making drug from the pharmaceutical giants.

Policosanol has shown its effectiveness for some time now, and it is one of the few natural products that you can get to help you lower cholesterol. Perhaps we need more research, properly funded to find out policosanol's profile once-and-for-all.

Or would the drug companies be trying to squeeze it out of the market to get more room for its own over hyped statins?