How to use Berberine to Boost Weight Loss, Lower Blood Sugar & More

Berberine might just be one of the best supplements you’ve never heard of. 

Through its powerful effects on insulin and an enzyme called AMP kinase, berberine makes weight loss easier by lowering blood sugar and reducing insulin. 

Its effects on these systems are so strong that it has been compared to pharmaceutical medications (but more on that in a minute).

Beyond its effects on weight loss and blood sugar, berberine also shows promise in several other areas including:

• Inflammation
• Gut health
• Cholesterol
• Muscle mass
• Cancer
• Metabolic health
• And more

Given this, if you are someone who is trying to lose weight, then it may just be worth looking into.

Here’s what you need to know:

How Berberine Helps With Weight Loss

Not unlike other effective weight loss supplements, berberine’s mechanism of action is multifactorial which means it acts on many different systems.

But unlike some of the others, its benefits are widespread enough that it is considered effective for most people.

Many of these benefits are unlocked through the activation of an enzyme known as AMP kinase. This is the same enzyme that is naturally activated through exercise.

Berberine won’t take the place of exercise, but to help you better understand what it’s doing in your body, you can think of it as ‘exercise in a bottle’ because many of the same benefits you get from exercise you’ll also get with berberine use, albeit to a smaller degree.

#1. Reverses Insulin Resistance and Helps Treat Diabetes

One of the most important effects of berberine is how it interacts with the hormone insulin.

Insulin levels drive weight gain and many diseases.

What you may not understand about insulin is that about 50% of patients in the US have insulin resistance to some degree.

In my experience, almost every patient who is overweight (defined as 10+ pounds beyond “normal” weight) has some degree of insulin resistance.

Part of the problem is in the diagnosis and management of insulin levels because most physicians don’t treat this condition until you’ve crossed the line into the diabetic range.

This is unfortunate because many people have high fasting insulin levels but technically don’t fall into the category of being diabetic, and thus they don’t receive treatment.

So how does berberine alter insulin levels?

Berberine activates a protein called AM​​PK.

The activation of this protein results in sensitizing your body to insulin, activates the fat-burning enzymes in your body, and helps reduce body fat stores.

This effect is so strong that berberine has been shown in studies to have the same blood glucose-lowering effects as the prescriptio​​n medication metformin (1).

Patients who took both metformin and berberine in combination with each other lost 2+ inches over a 13-week period. 

These inches lost in the waist/hip ratio likely indicate the burning of visceral body fat.

As you might already know, this visce​​ral fat (2) hides under your organs and accounts for the “belly fat” that everyone wants to get rid of.

• Bottom line: Berberine helps lower blood sugar and insulin levels which can help reduce abdominal and visceral fat stores. This is mediated through its activation of a protein known as AMPK. 

#2. Increases Mitochondrial Density and Boosts Metabolism

Another huge benefit of berberine is that it impacts mitochondria directly. 

If you aren’t aware of the function and value of mitochondria let me fill you in:

Your mitochondria are (in part) responsible for the metabolism of your entire body (3).

That means that the more mitochondria your body has and the better that they function the more energy you will be burning at rest. 

Energy that you will be burning while eating, drinking, thinking, sleeping, etc.

When we talk about weight loss we really are interested in increasing basal metabolic rate (another name for metabolism) because your metabolism is responsible for 90%+ of the calories you burn on a daily basis.

Only a few things actually increase mitochondria and one of those things is exercise (4) (this is one of the ways that exercise helps with weight loss)…

Another is berberine.

Berberine helps boost mitochondrial bio​​genesis (5) (meaning it increases the number of mitochondria) in muscle mass. 

This is really important for several reasons:

1) High sugar/high-fat diets reduce the effectiveness of your mitochondria (it makes them run more slowly and produce energy less efficiently)

2) Mitochondria are responsible for both your basal metabolic rate (in part) as well as your subjective sense of having enough “energy”

Boosting the number of mitochondria helps increase metabolism and can revert the damage done by sugar and insulin-stimulating foods on your mitochondria. 

• Bottom line: Berberine increases the number of mitochondria in muscle mass which may increase metabolism and improve the overall efficiency of existing mitochondria. This boost to metabolism helps promote weight loss. 

#3. Induces Brown Fat Break Down and Increases Fat Break Down Overall

When it comes to fat cells, not all fat is bad fat. 

In your body, some of your fat is known as “brown” fat, and this is the good fat.

Brown fat actually helps your body burn more fat by increasing heat production (6).

Basically, you want more brown fat and less of the other fat like visceral fat that occurs as a result of refined sugar/carbohydrates/insulin. 

Berberine actually helps enhance the amount of brow​​n fat in your body (7).

Studies have shown that this increase results in an increase in resting energy expenditure (metabolism), limit weight gain, reduces cold intolerance (by virtue of increasing body temperature), and increases brown fat production. 

Not bad, right?

I want to focus on one important point mentioned above:

Berberine helps to reduce cold intolerance by increasing body temperature.

This is really important because it reflects berberine’s capacity to increase metabolism (likely through mitochondrial production + brown fat production).

The more energy your body produces at baseline, the more heat that is released, the more calories you burn, and the higher your metabolism is.

This is yet another way that berberine may improve metabolism overall and help with weight loss.

• Bottom line: Berberine enhances brown fat in the body which helps increase body temperature, burn more fat, and increase baseline metabolism. All of these factors improve weight loss. 

#4. Lowers Inflammation in Fat & Liver Cells

When it comes to losing weight you need to make sure you have as little inflammation in your body as possible. 

Inflammation is certainly a nebulous term nowadays and is generally thrown around loosely when we don’t exactly understand why something is happening in the body. 

This leads to statements like “inflammation is the root of all diseases”.

And while there may be some truth to that statement, it isn’t necessarily helpful unless we understand how exactly it impacts our health and weight overall.

Generalized inflammation in the body is bad for several reasons:

1) Inflammation reduces metabolism by reducing T4 to​​ T3 conversion and reducing the efficiency of thyroid hormone. 

2) Inflammation leads to a condition known as adipos​​opathy (8) (inflammation of the fat cells) which leads to the dysregulation of hormones produced from fat cells.

3) Inflammation worsens both insulin and leptin ​​resistance which leads to weight gain directly and weight loss resistance

These are just a few of the negative effects of inflammation by the way, but it’s easy to see with these changes that inflammation makes weight gain easier and weight loss more difficult. 

So how does berberine fit in?

Berberine has been shown to lower generalized inflammation through its effects on the COX2 pathwa​​y (9).

In addition, it also has been shown to reduce inflammat​​ion in liver cells (10) – and this is important because inflammation in the liver leads to a condition known as fatty liver disease.  

• Bottom line: Berberine helps reduce both generalized inflammatory levels and hepatocyte inflammation. Reducing inflammation is important for weight loss because of its negative effects on metabolism, thyroid function, and hormones in the body. 

#5. Treats GI-Related Issues Due to Antibacterial & Antifungal Effects

We touched on this briefly above, but inflammation is obviously not something you want when you are trying to lose weight.

Furthermore, studies have shown that the foods that we eat can specifically cause intestinal inflam​​mation (11) which initiates the hormone imbalances that lead to weight gain like insulin resistance and adiposopathy.

This intestinal inflammation should be differentiated from systemic inflammation (meaning whole-body inflammation).

Intestinal inflammation is important because much of it stems from diet-induced changes to our intestinal microflora.

The microbiome is the super collection of bacteria and fungi that populate our GI tracts and alter and change how we digest and assimilate calories and food.

Changes to the composition of these bacteria concentrations are felt to contribute to obesity (12).

The good news is that the food you eat influences these bacterial and fungal concentrations (for better or worse). 

Berberine happens to have very potent antibacterial and anti-fungal effects (13) which makes it a great choice for killing the overpopulation of negative bacteria in our GI tracts.

By limiting the growth of the bacterial and fungal overgrowth in your intestines berberine can actually help lower intestinal inflammation and treat conditions like SIBO and​ ​SIFO. 

Managing the inflammatory markers in your GI tract is very important for weight loss. 

• Bottom line: Berberine has very active and powerful anti-bacterial and anti-fungal effects which can help lower intestinal inflammation in overgrowth syndromes like SIBO and SIFO. Inflammation in the GI tract leads to weight gain if not properly controlled. 

#6. Can Be Easily Combined with Other Weight Loss Medications & Supplements

If you’ve been reading my blog then you know I’m a big fan of adding supplements to medications to boost weight loss effects. 

The combination therapy of medications plus supplements seems to have a multiplicative effect, meaning that the combination of both together is more than what would be expected by simply adding the sum of their results individually.

Unfortunately, this logic runs counter to what many patients are used to. 

Most people believe that making one change at a time is the best way to determine if something is working or not.

But you need to understand that you are in your current position as a result of more than one negative stimulus: poor diet, lack of sleep, lack of exercise, high stress, etc.

The mindset of changing one variable at a time should be dropped in favor of making multiple changes at once all targeted around specific conditions.

This effect is also seen when using multiple supplements together and it applies to berberine as well (we will go over other supplements to help boost the results of berberine below).

Studies have even shown this effect to be true:

In one example the combination of metformin plus berberine was enough to completely negate the weight gain seen with the psychiatric medication olanzapine (14).

Other studies have shown that the combination of metformin plus berberine (15) is very powerful at reducing inflammation in the setting of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.

There are other medications that can be paired with berberine to help boost results which we will go over below.

• Bottom line: Berberine can be combined with other medications like metformin to boost weight loss. Combination therapy has a multiplicative effect on reducing insulin and helping with weight loss. 

How to use Berberine

Using berberine is simple because it’s easy to get, easy to take, and comes in capsule form.

The only thing you need to watch for is the formulation.

One of the biggest problems with berberine is the fact that it’s not very bioavailable with some animal studies suggesting that less than 1% is absorbed when taken orally.

For this reason, manufacturers have created different formulations with the goal of improving its absorption.

As of this writing, the most bioavailable (and, therefore, active) form of berberine is dihydroberberine.

Compared to the next best option (berberine hcl), dihydroberberine is roughly 5x more bioavailable (16).

It does happen to be more expensive, but this form has several advantages over other more traditional forms including a reduced risk of side effects.

This is important because when using less bioavailable forms, the dose often needs to be pushed to the limits in order to obtain benefits which tends to also increase your risk of GI-related side effects.

For fewer side effects and better results, stick with dihydroberberine at a dose of 200 mg taken twice per day (400 mg per day total).

If you are taking berberine hcl then your dose may need to be as high as 2,000 mg per day to obtain the same benefits.

This is the product that I personally use and recommend for people who are interesting in using berberine.

Are Side Effects a Problem?

Yes and no.

Some studies indicate that up to 30% of people who use berberine will experience side effects that tend to be localized to the GI tract.

My experience having used both berberine hcl and dihydroberberine extensively suggests that this number is probably closer to 10-15%, but it’s still not insignificant.

These side aren’t terrible, though, and, in my opinion, can be easily managed with some simple changes to how you are taking the supplement.

In addition, they may even be worth tolerating given berberine’s many benefits, so I have a hard time suggesting that berberine be discontinued if you experience them.

After all, there are plenty of people who tolerate medication-related side effects because they want the benefits that whatever medication they are taking provides.

If berberine is going to cause GI-related issues, here’s what may occur:

• Diarrhea or loose stools
• Cramping, bloating, or an increase in gas
• Changes in bowel movements
• A sensation of acid reflux or burning in the stomach area

These symptoms often subside spontaneously after a few weeks, even without doing anything, but can often be managed completely by either taking berberine with food or by simply reducing your dose.

How To Use Berberine With Other Supplements

If you’re serious about getting results with berberine then the best recipe is as follows:

• Use it in conjunction with regular exercise and a whole food, high protein diet
• Combine it with fasting (the best form of calorie restriction)
• Use it with other complementary natural weight loss supplements
• If desired, consider taking it in conjunction with weight loss medications

The more of these ingredients you add, the better your results will be.

As far as weight loss supplements go, here are some that pair perfectly with berberine:

• Alpha lipoic ac​​id: ALA is a powerful anti-inflammatory agent that boosts mitochondrial function, reduces insulin resistance, and is incredibly powerful if used in conjunction with berberine. You can learn more about ALA in this comprehensive​​ post. 
• Magnesium ​​citrate: Magnesium citrate helps sensitize the body to insulin levels, boosts energy production, and improves GI function. You can read more about how magnesium citrate helps with weight​​ loss here. Doses range from 200-2,000mg per day (titrated based on GI tolerance). 
• Glucomannan​​ powder: This thick viscous fiber can help slow down the absorption of carbohydrates, improve GI gut bacteria and create a sensation of “fullness”. Using 4 capsules 15 minutes prior to each meal with a large glass of water is particularly effective for weight loss. 

As far as weight loss medications go, here are some that you may want to consider:

• Metfor​​min: Metformin is widely prescribed for insulin resistance and can help in certain cases. It is, however, a relatively weak medication compared to the others below. 
• GLP-1 agonists: This powerful medication can help reduce weight, lower leptin levels, and lower insulin levels. 
• SGLT-2 inhibitors: This medication works to actively lower blood glucose levels by eliminating them from your body via urine. This directly results in lower blood sugar and lower insulin levels. 
• T3 thyroid hormone: T3 helps sensitize the body to insulin, boosts mitochondrial function (increasing metabolism), and can help treat leptin resist​​ance as well. 

Additional supplements and medications are by no means required, but if you want to lose weight as quickly and efficiently as possible, then they can be considered.

But, for those wondering, you can certainly see results by just using berberine alone.

By the way, berberine isn’t the only lesser-known weight loss supplement around.

Another of my favorites is T2 (known as 3,5 diiodo-l-thyronine) and if you want to learn how this gem can help you lose weight then check out this article next.