Berberine And Ketosis

#1

I now take berberine as a daily supplement (ok, almost every day, but you get my drift). This is nothing to do with keto, per se.

I had already noticed in the past that the Berberine helps to keep my ketosis in the high range (I don’t think it matters a lot as far as ketosis is concerned, but that’s what it is).

As some of you will know, I am following a regime of 5 days a week of Keto (of which 4 are OMAD), and moderate carbs during the weekend, both for social reasons and in order to satisfy my need for pasta…

Today, being a Saturday, I have eaten a moderate carb meal as follows:

  1. Portion of potato dauphinoise: around 35g of carbs.
  2. 75 gram of pasta with “arrabbiata” sauce: as I play the “starch trick” with my pasta, I reckon this was not more than 35g of carbs.
  3. some 100g of German “spaetzle”, with a lot of butter. At this point I wasn’t even bothering looking for the carbs as I knew I would get kicked out of ketosis, but I think it was around 20g of carbs.
  4. One glass of red wine.

I took Berberine immediately after the lunch (instead of before going to sleep as I generally do), because of all the carbs.

Then, during the afternoon, I waited for the “ketone breathalizer” to measure the expected end of the ketosis.

To my huge surprise, the measured levels did stard to get low after some 3.5-4 hours (this I had expected), but they stabilised on a (lower) level of full ketosis, stopping their descent at 13 from the original 28 (partial ketosis from 4, full ketosis from 10 to 40). Mind: in the recent past, without the Berberine, the 75g of pasta have been enough to kick me out of ketosis all right, as measured with the same instrument.

Not being a doctor or nutrition expert, I can only think of the following:

  1. After five days of full keto, it gets “more difficult” to be kicked out of ketosis,
    and/or
  2. It’s the Berberine that cleans the blood of the glucose and prevents being kicked out of ketosis.

Your thoughts (and reports about your experience with Berberine, if any) are, as always, appreciated.

#2

Berberine is great, like all Glucose disposal agents, it makes you use it more efficiently. Berberine HCL is good, Dihydroberberine is even better, most will say it’s as good as Metformin, and that’s been my experience with it as well.

Which is why you were able to put 2 and 2 together and see it for what it was, minus dismissing it’s clear effects!

#3

Thanks Ifod,
yeah, I knew the Berberine had an effect, but it was difficult to believe it was such a clear and effective one!
Not going to abuse it of course, but good to know for the future…