Berberine for Weight Loss: A Doctor’s Perspective
Berberine has been looked at for many different potential health benefits. Unfortunately some of these benefits have been heavily overstated by proponents of berberine, and do not provide you with a realistic view of what to expect if you were to take it. It’s often because they’re selling it, or are sponsored by a company that sells it. Well, I’m not selling it, nor am I sponsored by anyone, so in this video, I’m going to do my best to give you a comprehensive and the most realistic view of using berberine specifically for weight loss and blood sugar control.
Berberine is a chemical that's found in a number of different herbs including European barberry, goldenseal, goldthread, greater celandine, and Oregon grape. In fact, many of these herbs owe a lot of their beneficial properties to the fact that they contain berberine. So if you’ve ever been interested in trying one of these herbs before, you might be better off just getting pure berberine than trying to get an extract of one of these herbs. For example taking a goldenseal tincture or European barberry extract is mostly beneficial thanks to the berberine. And because purified berberine removes any contamination or harmful impurities that might be found in the raw goldenseal or European barberry herbs, I’d suggest you cut straight to the chase and take berberine instead. The most commonly cited benefits of berberine with relation to obesity and blood sugar are: 1.) having anti-inflammatory effects, 2.) being able to help with blood sugar control, 3.) reducing cholesterol levels, especially LDL levels, and 4.) reducing the production of fat cells. Of these four benefits only three of them have some evidence it will help in humans, since the reduction of fat cells has only been shown in petri dishes and rodents, not humans.
Of these three benefits, only two of them have effects that are likely to result in any weight being lost, since reducing cholesterol levels is mostly beneficial to cardiovascular health, which is good, but won’t be helping you to lose weight anytime soon. Of these two benefits, the potential ability to help with blood sugar control is realistically going to be the bigger contributor to any potential weight loss, although reducing inflammation will possibly be helpful as well.
The way berberine helps with blood sugar control and reduces inflammation is by helping to stimulate a protein called AMP-activated protein kinase, or simply AMPK. Activating AMPK does a number of different things in the body, like reducing the amount of glucose the liver produces and pours into the bloodstream. The overall effect is helping to reduce sugar in the blood, and reducing inflammation, particularly in those with metabolic diseases like diabetes. Now most supplements will use the berberine HCl form, which is generally the form you should look for when using berberine. This form is not well absorbed by the body, in fact, most of it is not absorbed at all, and much of it is metabolized by the liver, rendering it useless. So researchers have looked for ways to improve its absorption into the body. One such form is the creation of dihydroberberine, a derivative of berberine that appears to be much better absorbed than regular berberine. Dihydroberberine is far less common and much more difficult to find as a supplement, and is several times more expensive than berberine HCl, so is this improved form worth it? Well the study that compared the two surprisingly did not find any improvement in blood sugar control with dihydroberberine.
So even though significantly more berberine was absorbed, it had no additional benefits. This tells me that berberine likely has an upper limit, and taking more than the standard dose of berberine HCl is not likely going to be any better. At that point, the only benefit of dihydroberberine would be the possibility that you could take less dihydroberberine and achieve similar effects. However, the cost difference is still too large, and the regular berberine HCl dose, which would be around 500 mg 2-4 times a day or a total of 1 to 2 grams a day, is more than enough to achieve benefits, and still be much cheaper than trying to take a smaller dose of dihydroberberine. So despite regular berberine being poorly absorbed, the evidence would suggest that you don’t need too much berberine to be absorbed for it to be effective.
In fact, taking too much berberine is one of the common ways side effects occur. Most of them are related to gastrointestinal issues, such as stomach pain, gas, bloating, and nausea. However, when taken at a reasonable dose, berberine is pretty well tolerated. It does interact with certain medications, since berberine affects the metabolism in the liver, so if you’re taking any medication, particularly drugs that also interact with the liver like cyclosporin, you need to ask your doctor if it’s safe to use.
Berberine can also theoretically lower blood sugar and blood pressure levels, so if you’re taking any diabetes medication or blood pressure medication, you should also work with your doctor to make sure your blood sugar or blood pressure doesn’t get any unexpected drops. It doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t take berberine if you’re taking a diabetes medication like metformin, just that you should ask your doctor first for guidance. In fact, studies have combined and compared metformin with berberine before. There is interest in both because they’re both AMPK activators, and seem to provide some similar health benefits. Metformin is just a stronger AMPK activator. Studies have compared the two and found pretty similar effects on blood sugar control in diabetics. For cholesterol control however, berberine seems to have the upper hand. Most evidence would suggest that berberine is better than metformin at helping to lower cholesterol levels. People taking berberine are also less likely to have side effects than those taking metformin, and tolerate it better overall.
Now metformin is better absorbed than berberine in the body but with similar effects on blood sugar, and with berberine having more effects on cholesterol, you might be wondering why the heck doctors don’t just recommend berberine for diabetics instead of metformin. There are a few reasons why. For one, there’s still much more robust research behind metformin, and even though berberine has some smaller studies behind it, the research behind metformin is far greater. Secondly, everyone can make berberine supplements, and their standardization is all over the place. If you take a supplement that says 500 mg of berberine, you may actually be getting 200 mg, or 600 mg.
You just don’t know if a pill of berberine is actually giving you a good dose of berberine or if there might be impurities or contamination, since supplements are rarely independently tested. You see, berberine is available without a prescription, and can be purchased over the counter as a supplement, while metformin is by prescription only, and is considered a medication. If a doctor prescribes you 500 mg of metformin, you’re getting 500 mg of metformin. Medications require far more rigorous testing for purity and dosing than supplements. Also if your doctor has prescribed you something, they’ll be able to better monitor your progress and adherence to the medication, to make sure what they’re recommending is actually working for you.
Finally, generic metformin also tends to be quite cheap, while berberine supplements can range from moderately cheap to very expensive. So some doctors are understandably cautious, however I do believe a good quality berberine supplement can be a suitable alternative to blood sugar control in those with metabolic conditions like diabetes or PCOS. Blood sugar control is also hypothesized to be the primary way that berberine helps people lose weight, since the other weight loss mechanisms have not been well established in humans. This helps your body to better convert the carbohydrate that you eat into energy to be used, rather than being stored as fat. As a result, it’s people with blood sugar issues to begin with that are going to benefit the most, and likely lose the most weight from taking berberine. Studies have found a small weight loss effect for those taking berberine, with patients losing on average 3-5 pounds over a 3 months.
So it’s not going to be super significant, and if you don’t have any blood sugar issues you may not even notice it. We can also roughly compare berberine’s weight loss effects with metformin, and find that both produce similar but small overall effects on weight, with perhaps metformin being slightly more effective for weight loss. To summarize, berberine can be a useful alternative to metformin, and help those with diabetes to control their blood sugar levels and manage their cholesterol levels. It may also help you to lose a little weight, but don’t expect miracles. If you do decide to try it, you should look for a quality berberine supplement. It doesn’t have to be dihydroberberine, but it should be independently tested for purity and dose. Finally, while berberine is relatively safe to take at standard doses, you should still ask your doctor, especially if you’re taking other medication.
Hi, I’m Dr. Brian Yeung. Do you use berberine and how are your experiences? Let me know in the comments below. Subscribe and hit the notification bell to stay up to date, and if you found it informative, leave me a like, and share this video with someone you know can use the info.
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