Many medicinal foods with long traditions from ancient civilizations are famous for being both tasty as well as medicinally beneficial. Examples include turmeric, garlic and green tea. Berberine is definitely not one of those. It tastes horrible. Berberine is extremely bitter, and is unlikely to be found in the cooking pot of any respectable Chinese or Indian chef—the countries where Berberine celebrates a long history. However, traditional medical practitioners in both China and India recognized Berberine's potent medicinal benefits millennia ago. Ancient and current medical texts in both Traditional Chinese Medicine in China and Ayurvedic Medicine in India list dozens of uses of Berberine. Sources of Berberine Berberine is also different in that it is not consumed as a whole fruit, berry or leaf like many traditional food-medicines. It is more specifically an active compound extracted from those sources. The name "Berberine" is derived from the genus of plants, Berberis. Berberine occurs in the roots, bark, stems, and leaves of the different plants in this genus. Ironically, most Berberine products show picturesque red berries as a representation of Berberine extract, but that is not actually the part of the plant that is used for Berberine extraction. In traditional herbal systems, plants containing Berberine—such as Coptis chinensis (known as Huanglian in Chinese) or Chinese goldthread—were strictly classed as medicinal herbs, not culinary ingredients. In fact, in Traditional Chinese Medicine, Huanglian is one of the "50 fundamental herbs," and is famous for being the epitome of the clinical maxim "good medicine tastes bitter." It was traditionally prescribed as a foul-tasting, crude root tea precisely because its extreme bitterness signaled a potent concentration of alkaloids. The plants that produce Berberine naturally thrive in higher-rainfall, temperate to subtropical, and often forested or mountainous regions. This provides for wide diffusion around the globe. Other varieties include Berberis vulgaris (barberry), Berberis aristata (tree turmeric), Mahonia aquifolium (Oregon grape), and Hydrastis canadensis (goldenseal). Medicinal uses: Ancient East versus modern West In the traditional medical texts, the uses of Berberine were centered primarily on the gut and microbiome. Ancient practitioners prescribed the compound for its potent antimicrobial properties—including the treatment of infections, diarrhea, and parasites. In Western medicine the recognition of Berberine has been slow, and the focus has been different. In the West, research has centered on metabolic support and diabetes control—and the research has evolved slowly. When Berberine was finally "recognized" in the West it was viewed strictly as an obscure plant alkaloid or a strong yellow industrial dye. When research on Berberine did commence, it was mostly limited to in-vitro or animal lab studies focusing on its traditional uses as an antimicrobial or anti-parasitic compound. The researchers logically deduced these properties existed because Berberine evolved as a bitter defense chemical for the plant itself. Metabolic support—the modern uses Human trials on Berberine's metabolic support properties arrived in the early 2000s. Close examination of lipid profiles and blood sugar pathways in real humans was completed in 2008 with a landmark study that compared Berberine effectiveness to Metformin, a well-known pharmaceutical. Metformin, according to Wikipedia, is "the main first-line medication for the treatment of type 2 diabetes." In this study, Efficacy of Berberine in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes, researchers followed patients for 13 weeks and observed hemoglobin A1c was reduced from 9.5 to 7.5—the same amount of reduction seen with Metformin. The researchers also found that Berberine lowered triglycerides and total cholesterol. The researchers reported that Berberine works by turning on an enzyme called AMPK—the low fuel sensor of human cells. When AMPK levels increased, energy is boosted, blood glucose is regulated, insulin sensitivity improves, triglycerides are lowered, and increased fat-burning occurs in mitochondria. The study, published in Metabolism, was small in scale, but remarkable in recognizing Berberine's metabolic support properties and creating an explosion of interest. Additional studies show Berberine supplementing increases levels of serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine in the brain. Meanwhile, other research demonstrated that Berberine preserves Long-Term Potentiation in synapses—a phenomenon where signal transmission between neurons is preserved. Western approach to utilizing Berberine In the West, not only are or the primary uses different than ancient traditions—metabolic health versus stomach conditions—but so is the method of application. In Western countries, not too many health consumers would be willing to drink a bitter tea made from a smelly root. They much prefer supplements. In addition, while consuming "whole" is usually the best practice in plant nutrition, it is not always possible or practical when trying to deliver a beneficial amount of an active ingredient that has to be extracted from bark, leaves and roots. This is why the Berberine listing you're likely to see on a supplement label will be in the form "Berberine HCl." HCl stands for hydrochloride. In chemistry, Berberine in its raw, pure plant-alkaloid form is a stable base; however, it is difficult for the human digestive tract to absorb it on its own. To fix this, supplement manufacturers bind the Berberine molecule to hydrochloric acid, turning it into a Berberine salt. Salts dissolve much more easily in the watery environment of the human digestive tract. Enhanced bioavailability Because it dissolves better, a person's gut can actually absorb a clinically meaningful amount of Berberine into the bloodstream rather than just passing it through the digestive tract. Berberine HCl is a highly-concentrated, purified isolate. It strips away the plant matrix entirely, allowing someone to take a precise, standardized dose of pure chemical salt in a tiny capsule. This is something historical practitioners couldn't do with a crude root decoction in ancient China or India. Berberine is one of the potent nutrients in Essential Control from Optimal Health Systems. Click the banner ad on this page to learn more. - - - Sources: Metabolism (NIH/PubMed), American Botanical Council, NootropicsExpert.com, Wikipedia (Berberis), Wikipedia (LTP), Wikipedia (AMPK).
