Berberine

I was looking for something to help with my diabetes and read about Berberine in a magazine. After researching it online (WebMD, NCBI, and reading user reviews on Amazon), I decided to give it a try. It seemed an all-natural way that might lower my numbers. With diet and exercise I had been in the high 100-120 range, but then I was in the 120s consistently no matter what I did. I was worried my a1c would be above 6.5 at my next doctor visit. I knew if it was, my doctor would want to put me on Metformin and I just don't want to go that route if at all possible. But I was super skeptical about the berberine because I've tried just about everything else natural to lower my numbers and nothing worked. To my surprise, the very first morning after taking the berberine my numbers were in the 90s. Say what? I hadn't seen that in a couple years. Before I got too hopeful though, I reigned in my excitement. I wanted to see what would happen over time. My numbers stayed in the 90s, sometimes even in the 80s. A "high" day was in the 100s (like 107). I used to try and keep my numbers at 110 or under. With the berberine it was possible to shoot for 100 or under. I have now been on it for 3 months. I had to do my 6 month blood work and was curious if this affected my a1C. I had been at 6.5 the previous visit. It dropped to 6.3. In the last month though I wasn't as fastidious about taking it 3x/day. I'm curious if I go back to that if my a1C will drop even more. We'll find out next visit six months from now... I was delighted to see my cholesterol had also improved. From total chol of 200, triglycerides of 100 and LDL of 119 last year to total chol of 189, triglycerides of 87 and LDL of 112 this year. HDL remained consistent both years at 60. I believe the Berberine helped with my cholesterol numbers improving too. Another thing I want to note is tummy issues. When I first started taking the berberine I was also taking reservatol and milk thistle. Not sure what was upsetting my stomach so bad, but after meals it was imperative I be near a bathroom. Which was very inconvenient. I read about the side effects for the other 2 and decided to eliminate them when I learned both can up occurrences of breast cancer, and milk thistle can have a laxative effect. Tummy problems solved. Not sure if it was one of them causing it, a combo of all 3 or what, but that was rough. But on the berberine alone? No problems like that. I love seeing my morning fasting numbers so low though. I feel this stuff is wonderful and am very glad there's a company who provides it. As for the quality...My first couple of bottles were bright yellow capsules. This last bottle was darker yellow (almost a stone ground mustard color) and had a couple broken/smashed capsules. That was a little disconcerting. And my numbers have been back in the 110s and 120s since taking this newest bottle. (But I also haven't been taking 3x/day. Some days I'm lucky just to take it once.) So I'm not sure if this one missed quality control or what, but when I run out I'll order more. Until I feel this isn't working anymore or I have side effects, I'll keep this in my health repertoire.

This helped to lower my sugar levels. Not drastically but a few points

Works great help my blood sugar immense

The product itself works as advertised. My wife has been using it for several months now and this is the only brand she chooses to use. It was competitively priced and arrived earlier than expected.

Excellent product for keeping the carbohydrates controlled during food consumption

This pill made me feel absolutely horrible! I had horrible stomach problems, chills and fatigue each time I took it. I thought maybe it was a fluke so I took a day off and did fine and then BAM next day after taking it, I had the same exact thing. Wish it was eligible for a return or refund as it is quite pricey and had promising reviews.

I have been testing this on my blood sugars for months. Sadly. Despite all the research I read as well, it seems to be the least effective supplement I have used for blood sugar support and not only does not rival metformin (as some articles and sellers on the net suggest), it actually seems to antagonize the benefits of metformin. I was looking for an alternative to metformin because this medicine is known to reduce vitamin 12 absorption and possibly Vit b6 was well. Unknown whether Berberbine does too. BTW. I do not seem to have any obvious side effects from using the supplement, other than the fact that it RAISES my blood sugar reliably by 10-20 points, between meals and for the morning fasting sugar. I have left it out and resumed metformin. Sugars go down below 100. I have added it to metformin. Sugars go up. I have used my other supplements without metformin or Berberine. Sugars go down. I add Berberine back in. Sugars go back up. Finally I continued taking it for a week (with no metformin on board) but kept taking my other supplements. Sugars were not optimal but “okay”. Then I stopped the berberine, but continued the others such as turmeric and blood sugar manager by Nature’s Way. Blood sugars went down again to near 100 or less. Finally then. Daily calories and percent carbohydrates in nearly the same zone each day. I added back this prep of Berberine. And sadly blood sugar went up 15 points. So. Not only am I starting to doubt that it works, I am starting to wonder whether it is in fact counterproductive at least for my blood sugar support. I realize that home glucose monitoring has built in variability because test strips are not held to the kind of high production standards that are truly needed. Nonetheless. Across weeks and repeated testing it seems to actually be consistently raising my blood sugar regardless whether I am using metformin or not. In contrast. Metformin plus the turmeric, Blood Sugar Manager or the older supplements I liked but are no longer available (Level Right and one I no longer remember the name of) all seemed to work together in at least an additive fashion to get bloood sugars to 80s or 90s but never too low. I like the sound of Berberine’s reported benefits. Sadly I cannot say that it has been working well enough for me to continue. So I just cancelled my subscription to it. By the way. I also exercise daily at least 20 min on Schwinn Airdyne Pro. Sometimes more. Metformin and the other supplements have worked in predictable trustworthy fashion along side exercise. However. Even exercise has not seemed to boost this preparation of Berberine. I suppose I could try another source of it before completely giving up on this AMPK activator.

The high mg content is ideal for balancing the sugar in the blood.

The labelling on the bottle was mis leading

Week 3 and not noticing anything.