Berberine May Support Healthy Levels of LDL Cholesterol, New Study Says
Breaking News 11/15/04
By
Kim Pryor
The herb berberine may lower levels of total and LDL bad cholesterol, researchers report in a recent issue of the journal Nature Medicine.
The study authors determined the cholesterol levels of 91 patients with high cholesterol. They then treated the subjects with berberine or a placebo for 3 months. The patients treated with berberine experienced an 18 percent drop in total cholesterol and a 20 percent drop in LDL cholesterol. The berberine did not affect levels of HDL good cholesterol.
The researchers then studied berberines effect in a subset of 32 participants not taking any other medications or herbs before or during the study. In these subjects, those using berberine for three months experienced a 29 percent reduction in total cholesterol, a 25 percent reduction in LDL cholesterol, and a 35 percent decline in triglycerides.
The same group of researchers also induced high cholesterol in hamsters and then gave them berberine. The berberine-treated animals had a 40 percent and 42 percent reduction in serum cholesterol and LDL cholesterol respectively.
The researchers noted that berberines mechanism of action differs from statin drugs. Statins block cholesterol formation in liver cells, which causes more cholesterol receptors to appear on the cell surface to pull cholesterol from the blood to compensate for the lower levels. This causes blood cholesterol levels to fall. Berberine, however, works independently of how much cholesterol is in the cell. Like statins, the herb increases the number of cholesterol receptors on the cell surface, but it accomplishes this by stabilizing and improving the receptor-forming process.
Before starting the study, the researchers screened 700 Chinese remedies in lab tests and found that berberine had the greatest effect in increasing cholesterol receptors. Testing showed that receptor levels were increased further when the herb was used together with a statin. Consequently, the researchers suggested that berberine could be used with statins to significantly lower cholesterol.
According to the researchers, These findings show berberine as a new hypolipidemic drug with a mechanism of action different from that of statin drugs.
The study authors call for clinical studies to determine the best dose of berberine and the effect of combining it with statins.
Reference:
Kong W, Wei J, Abidi P, Lin M, Inaba S, Li C, Wang Y, Wang Z, Si S, Pan H, Wang S, Wu J, Wang Y, Li Z, Liu J, Jiang JD. Berberine is a novel cholesterol-lowering drug working through a unique mechanism distinct from statins. Nat Med. November 7, 2004 [Epub ahead of print].
Berberine is found in VRPs CardioRhythm.
Newsletter Archive
Learn about the role of vitamins and nutritional supplements in your health by reading
past newsletter articles.