Let's talk about berberine for a minute. It comes from a plant, the barberry plant.
Some technical names Rhizoma coptidis, Berberis amurense. It's a good plant
in terms of supplements and use for especially diabetes. Some say for
cholesterol as well. We'll talk about that in just a few minutes. It was
originally used in the East for bacterial diarrhea. It was noticed in the
late 1900s that when using it for bacterial diarrhea, it often resulted in
decrease in blood sugar. So they started saying, look, is this actually something
that we can use instead of metformin? Talk a little bit more about the plants,
mints perspective. Again, berberine, berberis, goldenseal, Chinese goldensea,l
phellodendron, bloodroot, several different names for this. In fact, like I
said, 23 genera. Again, while we're on the technical side, what is it that's in
there that's doing. Isoquinolone alkaloid, again, just for the technical
people in the biochemists. Here's what it looks like. You get red berries as you
may see there. There's some thorns on it as well one of them said commented on a
metformin video we were doing, a video talking about how to tolerate metformin,
he said, use berberine instead, It has similar benefits, but it's not tainted by
association with standard doctoring. A friend of mine is prescribed metformin
but uses this goldenseal, golden mill. Tom Deck who helps run the forum said, look,
metformin is not is as natural as beberine. And while some effects of both
overlap, the pleiotropic effects (in other words,
all these extra mechanisms) haven't really been studied as well as metformin.
Tom's right. He's a smart guy. So what does the science actually say about
berberine? Well, it said several things. This is one from a group of Eastern
researchers. And in fact, there's been so much experience with it in the East.
That's what you tend to see, stern researchers have done work on it. This is
a meta-analysis, Berberine in the Treatment of Type 2 Diabetes A Systemic
Review and Meta-analysis. What did they find
considerable statistical heterogeneity. In other words, findings were not that
consistent overall, but they did see several studies.
The blood-sugar impact or the blood-glucose impact was the same as
using oral prescription medications. Again, most often, metformin. Speaking of
mechanisms, what are the mechanisms? I'm gonna get it again dip into the
technical side for just a minute. Not all of these are totally proven. But again,
just a list of things that the geeks can think about. AMPK (activated protein
kinase inhibitor), it enhances insulin sensitivity. That's the thing, the pattern
that you see most often enhancing sensitivity to insulin. So if it does
that. You're gonna get a reduced weight gain for people with insulin resistance.
You'll get a decreased hemoglobin A1c. You get decreased fasting insulin. It
doesn't really appear to impact insulin secretion in and of itself. It again
appears to impact the response to the insulin, therefore, maybe some protection
of the Islet cells. You know, when you're banging too hard and requiring too much
insulin for too long, it wears them out. This gives them a rest.
And as you might expect with anything that improves blood sugar, you're gonna
get an improvement in triglycerides. So berberine, go or no-go? I use it. Like
we've said, some sources say it's as effective as metformin, and associates
in that August 2012 survey showed that it decreased hemoglobin A1c 1 to 2
points. As you know, there will always be debate. Other sources to say it's
unproven. I don't think it's improvement. I think there's still debate. There will
always be debate in terms of cost. You know some metformins are being given
away free just to get you to come into the pharmacy. So making the case that it
costs less, I think is a little bit of a shaky debate if you are taking and how
much do you take 900 to 1500 milligrams daily. Now most people take it once daily,
but the half-life is four and a half hour. So if a lot of people would say
well, you better take it twice a day or even three times a day. That statements
assuming that fluctuation and blood level of
berberine is a bad thing, and that's an assumption too. So overall, is there
science behind it? Yep, there's some science behind it. Is it conclusive? It's
strong but it's not conclusive. What do I do? I use it. Thank you for your interest.