Berberine 500

Berberine is a natural, powerful plant alkaloid that has been used since 3000 BC, historically in Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine, for a multitude of health benefits. Today, it is best known for its potent blood sugar-regulating potential, as modern diets and lifestyles may encourage high blood sugar levels, which many experts believe is a key factor in developing metabolic syndrome and corresponding health conditions.

Berberine works through many mechanisms and is involved in a wide range of biological processes, including the regulation of glucose, lipid, and protein metabolism. It may support a healthy GI system and gut microbiome, help combat obesity by affecting fat cells and visceral adipose tissue, and help maintain a person's current healthy blood lipid status. With all of its health benefits, as well as its potential to stimulate the AMPK pathway and autophagy, and function as an antioxidant, berberine has even been proposed as an anti-aging compound.

Many mechanisms have been proposed for berberine’s blood sugar modulating power, as it has been shown to support blood sugar regulation for those within normal blood sugar ranges. It may directly discourage the intestine’s digestion and absorption of glucose by inhibiting an intestinal enzyme called α-Glucosidase, which digests carbohydrates and converts them into simpler forms called monosaccharides. Berberine can also increase glucose transporters around the body, helping the liver, fat, and muscle to remove glucose from the bloodstream. Within the bloodstream, berberine encourages peripheral cells to burn glucose.

Berberines’ potential antimicrobial action in the gut may also contribute to its blood sugar-lowering effects, and some researchers even hypothesize berberine may treat diabetes by affecting the gut microbiome, as the antigen load and endotoxin byproducts of bacteria (lipopolysaccharide, or LPS) may encourage the formation of type 2 diabetes.

Berberine may also balance macrophages in the GI system. Macrophages are a pivotal part of the immune system which responds to invaders and can become detrimental to the host if they become chronically activated.

Berberine bears a fascinating benefit in its ability to favorably modulate adipose tissue (body fat) into a healthier composition. The 3 main types of body fat include the relatively benign subcutaneous fat found beneath the skin, the more inflammatory visceral fat surrounding organs, and ectopic fat within organs. Berberine has been shown to encourage body fat recomposition, featuring less visceral fat. It may do this in part by changing gene expression in fat tissues to encourage a more consistent state of fat burning in the cell (specifically by encouraging AMPK-mediated ATGL expression). Berberine has also been found to upregulate thermogenesis in brown and white adipose tissue: the wasting of energy to create heat within the cell.

In mice studies, berberine has been shown to reduce inflammation within fatty tissue, by preventing inflammatory macrophages from infiltrating the fatty tissue and building up within the fat tissues’ extracellular matrix, or ECM. As researchers noted in a 2016 study,“Our findings imply that berberine improves insulin resistance by inhibiting M1 macrophage activation in adipose tissue.”

While more research is needed, berberine has been found to provide potent anti-hyperlipidemic effects in subjects already in normal ranges, beneficially modulating blood lipid levels. It can reduce fatty acid synthesis in the liver, as well as the fatty liver itself. (In rodent trials, berberine has been found to inhibit NAFLD in mice fed a high-fat diet. It may do this in part by reducing transcription factors like FoxO1, carbohydrate-responsive element-binding protein (ChREBP), and sterol regulatory element-binding protein 1c (SREBP1). Berberine may also promote the liver’s mRNA expression to beneficially modulate LDL levels.

Berberine boasts a myriad of other potential health benefits. Berberine may have a beneficial effect on the immune system thanks to many factors, including beneficially affecting intestinal immune cells (70% of which are found in the gut), as well as immune factors. It can prevent the expression of inflammatory interleukins, macrophages, and tumor necrosis factor (TNF), and discourage low-level inflammatory markers. 

When it comes to women, as noted in a 2020 study, “Berberine is shown to be effective against insulin resistance and obesity, particularly against visceral adipose tissue (VAT). Because of these properties, researchers theorized that berberine could be effective in PCOS treatment….[B]erberine is safe to use in premenopausal women who want to get pregnant and showed few side effects in all the cited studies. In conclusion, the use of berberine for PCOS is safe and promising, even if more studies are needed to create a consensus about the dosage of berberine useful for long-term therapy.”