The Insane Benefits of Berberine: It’s More Than Just a Weight Loss Supplement | Dr. Steven Gundry
Berberine, does it help with weight loss? Well, you probably heard the news that two of the major weight loss companies, Weight Watchers and Noom, have decided to market those miracle weight loss prescription drugs as part of their program. Well, that’s big news and I’m not going to mention the names of those drugs, the names that will not be spoken here. But let’s get this clear. Those weight loss drugs work by suppressing your appetite, by stopping gastric emptying so that you always feel full and oh, by the way, at least 40% to 45% of the weight loss those drugs, make no mistake, they do produce weight loss, is from muscle loss, muscle mass reduction.
And if you follow anything about aging, you want to keep your muscles. Keeping your muscles is one of the hallmarks of successful aging. So, yeah, great. I’m glad everybody loses weight on the drugs that will not be named. But weight loss as a goal should not include the loss of nearly 50% of your muscle mass.
Ok. So enter berberine. Berberine has gotten a lot of interest as maybe the poor man’s natural alternative to these weight loss drugs.
And there is some evidence that berberine can act as a GLP1 inhibitor, which is what these drugs do. But berberine is much more than that.
I am a huge fan of Berberine. So much so that berberine is an ingredient in many of my products here at Gundry MD. So I’m a big fan and know a lot about how berberine works and it’s so much more than just a natural alternative to these prescription drugs. First of all, berberine is a compound in several plants. Oregon grape root, which is different than grape seed extract.
It’s present in barberry, it’s present in several compounds. It is a polyphenol, the son of a gun. Berberine is one of the most potent mitochondrial uncouplers that have ever been discovered. Now, if you’ve read The Energy Paradox, if you’ve read Unlocking the Keto Code, if you read the upcoming Gut Check, you’ll know that uncoupling mitochondria is one of the long-term keys to long-term health.
Number two, you know that uncoupling mitochondria is doing a caloric bypass on energy metabolism.
It makes your mitochondria, waste fuel, waste calories. And if you’re wasting calories, you will lose weight. So let’s get this straight. Berberine first and foremost, and you won’t see this on the internet, is a potent mitochondrial on coupler and that’s why I like it. What else does it do?
Well, berberine is known to activate an enzyme called AMPK. Now, AMPK is one of the major regulators of metabolism and energy expenditure in the body by stimulating AMPK. Berberine can enhance fat burning and increase calorie expenditure even though it’s a mitochondrial uncoupler. So that means you are more efficient at metabolism and will support your weight loss efforts. It also has been shown to reduce blood sugar.
It controls blood sugar and it also reduces insulin levels. Now let’s back up to insulin.
Insulin is the hormone that handles the sugars and the proteins that you ingest. Simplistically, insulin is a salesperson that sells sugar and protein to your muscles. And if your muscles are hungry, then insulin has a straightforward job of selling the sugar and protein you ate to your muscles.
They go, yeah yeah yeah, I love what you’re selling. I want to buy it. On the other hand, most Americans, even 50% of normal-weight Americans are insulin-resistant. 88% of overweight Americans are insulin resistant. 99.
5% of obese Americans are insulin resistant. That means that they do not listen to the sales pitch that insulin is making and they are resistant to the sales pitch. That means that you make more insulin and more insulin to try to convince your muscles to take the sugar and protein out of your blood. And unfortunately, that doesn’t happen. And that’s why your blood sugar goes up.
That’s why your hemoglobin A1C goes up. That’s why your fasting insulin goes up. That’s why you are insulin resistant. So insulin is also a fat storage hormone and the higher your insulin goes, the easier it is for you to make fat out of the sugar and protein that you eat.
And that’s the catch-22.
The more of the stuff you eat, the more insulin you make, the more fat you deposit and the more insulin you need to keep things happening. And that’s what’s so bad about our current diet. So, berberine drops insulin levels and drops blood sugar. It’s a great way to start. In addition, what berberine does is it lowers insulin which then lowers the enzymes involved in fat synthesis, and that can eliminate or at least lessen the accumulation of fat and fat cells.
Now, it can also reduce the expression of genes involved in fat production and increase the expression of genes involved in fat breakdown, promoting weight loss. So, berberine has got like a three-mode approach in producing the weight loss that you’re looking for in these prescription drugs that are now so wildly popular that two weight loss programs are going to use them, and that goes counter to everything that we wanna do for long term good health. Now, drug companies know this. Drug companies want you to be a consumer for life, they’re not peddling quick-fix solutions. If a quick-fix solution was useful, I can assure you that drug companies would not be interested in this.
They want you, these companies that are going to use this drug, to be a customer for life. And that’s the last thing any of us want for good health. We want good health for life without the aid of pharmaceuticals. And that’s what I’ve devoted the last years of my practice and my research to giving you other options. And that’s why berberine is a part of my Armamentarium in a number of my products because it’s going to give you the benefits from a natural compound without the drawbacks of being addicted to a pharmaceutical for life.
More amazing episodes just like this one! Watch now. Supplements are great for you as long as you know what dose you need to have an effect.
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