Berberine as a dietary (chemical) supplement?
I first reported this 22 years ago in my Newsletter #4 (Jan 1997) for treating traveler’s diarrhea. Years prior, the Chinese had already been using it. It came in uncoated small yellow tablets in vials of 10 tabs each, 100 mg/tab. I always took some with me when I started taking clients to China in the mid-1980’s. I myself never needed it but I took it along only in case my traveling colleagues did. It was better than some of the prescription antidiarrheal they packed in their bags. The report is reprinted below:
“…An example of a good herb-derived drug with little toxic side effects is berberine, which the Chinese have isolated from huanglian (Coptis sinensis). Huanglian is a common herbal drug with cooling and detoxifying properties, used for treating various conditions, including hemorrhage (e.g., vomiting blood and nosebleed), fidgeting, vomiting, diarrhea, and jaundice; it is also used externally to treat mouth sores, skin sores, and red eyes. This isolated berberine is now widely available in China and in overseas Chinese communities as an antibacterial, especially effective as an antidiarrheal. If you intend to travel to third-world countries, especially for the first time, it pays to take along some berberine. It is as good (if not more so) as any modern antidiarrheals. However, berberine is NOT equivalent to huanglian, nor are ginsenosides to ginseng (Asian or American). It is easy and cheap to isolate and for this reason, you will never see it produced here, because there will not be any big profit for producing and marketing it.” [From p. 226 of my newest book, My Life & Rollercoaster Career]
Note the last sentence. It may no longer be true. Since my first mention of berberine there, more news from Chinese sources showed this chemical drug to be effective in a few other illnesses, such as Type II diabetes, hypertension, and hyperlipemia, among others. They are all reported in my Newsletter, now also republished elsewhere in above book (e.g., pp. 355-356).
A word of caution about taking this chemical drug. For use in traveler’s diarrhea and other gastrointestinal problems, the recommended dose has been 100mg – 200mg, 3 times a day. It has been safely used in China for several decades. With the newer use for diabetes, it is usually recommended at 1g (1,000mg), 3 times daily, which is 5 times the normal dose as an antibacterial. If I were you, I would carefully watch for side effects (cramps, GI problems, etc.) to pop up after 2 or 3 weeks. In the U.S.A., this would be difficult to carry out unless you, like me, don’t take any OTC or prescription drugs. So, when any toxic side effects pop up, they would most likely be due to taking this chemical. On the other hand, it has been widely reported that roughly 50% of seniors routinely take over half-a-dozen drugs daily. Since these drugs all have side effects, there is no way for them to tell what side effects are due to which drugs. So, just be careful and ‘listen’ to your body!
Incidentally, I am not sure how many available berberine products are now made from synthetic berberine. If you know they are, avoid them. As I have explained in my books and elsewhere, synthetic drugs all have side effects, due to itself or its contamination with intermediates and byproducts from the synthetic process. Purity is never 100.0000…%. And I doubt any synthetic drug has all its unknown impurities tested for their toxicity before approval for human use. Also, in my book and my article, A Disruptive Concept in Drug Therapy (www.ayslcorp.com/blog), I mentioned a synthetic chemical called W-18. It is 5,000 to 10,000 times stronger than morphine! How would you like a chemical like this being present as a toxic impurity in the usual 1% or 2% of your modern synthetic drug?
If you are not sure what I mean, please read pp. 235-236 of my newest book. It is explained there, republished here from Issue #6 of my newsletter, 22 years ago! It is also described elsewhere throughout my book whenever appropriate. Please read it and try to understand our toxic drug problem for the sake of your grandchildren’s generation and theirs. The Kindle version of this 550-page book is only $5.49 on www.amazon.com. No shipping is involved and the book would be in your Kindle or Tablet within hours. Besides, 75% or my book sales would go to efforts to break this toxic drug cycle.
20190412