TikTok Myth of the Week: Berberine Is Nature’s “Ozempeak”

There is a lot of crap in our healthcare system. Even if you have a pretty good idea of ​​what treatment will help you, it will take a lot of time and money to go through the appropriate channels to get it. So there will always be a market for anything you can just order online and start taking the hell out of doctors. That’s the appeal of berberine, a supplement touted as “nature’s ozempeak.”

Why are people looking for the natural version of Ozempic?

Ozempic is known to be a new injectable drug that helps people lose weight. (Technically, Wegovy is a weight loss drug and Ozempic is a diabetes drug with the same active ingredient at a lower dose. But for some reason, Ozempic is a noisier brand name.)

Most weight loss treatments are not covered by health insurance, so when you see celebrities and socialites raving about how they lost weight on Ozempic (and talking approvingly about how it reinforces messy eating habits, for example, from one up to three pieces of food, yes), you can be sure they are paying out of pocket. Either they ask a doctor for an off-label prescription of Vegovi or Ozempic, or they get an illegal, research-grade semaglutide mixture made at a shady pharmacy. A monthly injection of Ozempic costs about $1,200 and Wegovy costs about $1,600 . (Mixed substances are cheaper, but still cost hundreds of dollars.)

Whatever the source, it’s expensive. And if you plan on taking the medication yourself, you may be concerned about side effects that are so unpleasant that about 10% of people who start taking semaglutide end up quitting. So if you scroll through a TikTok video that says you can get the same weight loss effect from a herbal supplement, it sounds pretty good.

Berberine is not a “natural ozempeak”.

Berberine and semaglutide (the active ingredient in Ozempic) may lower blood glucose levels. This makes them both potentially useful in the treatment of diabetes. But that’s where the similarity ends.

Semaglutide mimics an intestinal hormone called GLP-1. In addition to lowering blood sugar levels, it makes your stomach empty more slowly, allowing you to feel full longer, and it also affects your brain, affecting your appetite (and possibly cravings in general ). Semaglutide is a game-changing weight loss drug, not because it lowers blood glucose levels—other drugs already do—but because it helps people eat less without feeling hungry.

Berberine works differently. Some of the TikTokers will tell you that berberine is not actually nature’s Ozempic; it is actually natural metformin . While not entirely true, this is the best analogy. Both metformin and berberine act on the AMPK pathway. They both reduce the amount of sugar your liver makes and encourage your body’s cells to absorb more sugar from the bloodstream. As a result, your blood sugar level drops – good news if you’re trying to control your diabetes.

A 2018 review compared metformin and berberine, finding a number of similarities in how the two chemicals work, but also some differences. “It is not clear whether all of the actions of metformin and berberine are mediated through the same mechanisms,” the authors write, “or whether some through similar and others through different mechanisms.”

In other words, contrary to what some TikTokers are saying, berberine is not a natural version of Ozempic, and not even a natural version of metformin. By the way, there is a natural version of metformin: it is the French lilac, which was reportedly used to treat the symptoms of diabetes in Europe in the 17th century. The French lilac and its extracts were too toxic to make a good diabetes cure, but in the 1990s, scientists discovered that one of its ingredients , metformin, was less toxic than the others and could be synthesized in the lab.

We don’t even know if berberine works for weight loss.

Because TikTokers advertises berberine supplements, the “Nature’s Ozempic” moniker does most of the marketing work. But berberine has not actually been proven to cause weight loss in humans. This 2020 review collected several studies on the effects of berberine on blood glucose levels and other biomarkers in humans, but studies directly related to weight loss were conducted in mice and rats. The only human study that mentions weight loss did not include a control group .

Browsing TikTok, you can find a lot of people saying or implying that berberine promotes weight loss, but they never confirm this claim. I found one video of a woman posing with pills under the heading “Ozempic Dupe/Monjaro [sic] Dupe” and the voice-over says “Average weight loss is 21 pounds in eight weeks and you don’t need a prescription.”

However, click on the link in the bio, and the results of the voicing will turn out to be the results of a study of a supplement containing “modified cellulose and cetyl fatty acids.” Not berberine, and certainly not anything to do with Ozempic. As with the ice water diet , creators hashtag their videos with what’s trending to sell any supplements they already have an affiliate code for. Sometimes it’s berberine, but they hope you don’t care if it’s not.

Berberine is basically a drug, even though it is regulated as a supplement.

In the US, there are two different ways to sell you a chemical that will affect your health. First, it can be approved as a drug, which requires rigorous testing and FDA approval. Ozempic and Wegovy went through this process.

Another option is to label it as a “dietary supplement”, be careful about the health claims you put on the label (“glucose support” not “treat diabetes”), and expect the FDA probably won’t time or budget. chase you (if you don’t kill too many people). While many supplements probably do nothing, some of them do have a pharmaceutical effect on your body. Ironically, the lack of oversight of dosage and formulation means that it’s often impossible to tell which is which, even if you’ve done research on the active ingredients.

Just because they’re “natural” doesn’t exempt supplements from causing harm. As Keith Nibbs points out in her excellent Wired article on the Berberine TikTok vogue , berberine has a strong enough effect on blood sugar levels that healthcare professionals treat it with caution. One nutritionist Nibbs spoke to says she recommends blood tests to her clients taking berberine to make sure their blood sugar doesn’t drop too low.

Berberine can also cause or worsen neonatal jaundice if you take it while you are pregnant or breastfeeding, and Memorial Cancer Center. Sloan-Kettering notes that it may interfere with the action of certain types of immunosuppressant and chemotherapy drugs. So if you want to try this supplement, your best bet is to work with your doctor to make sure it’s safe for you – which is what you probably wanted to avoid in the first place.