Can This Herb Completely Replace Drugs For Type-2 Diabetics?

A few weeks ago, I received an email from a diabetic patient of mine. He’s been working hard to control his blood sugar. He wrote: “Hi Frank, I have some very good news that I’m excited to tell you. I’ve been following your program closely and was a little discouraged. Although my A1C levels [average blood sugar levels] have been dropping, my fasting blood sugar has not. It was still at 123. About two to three weeks ago, I began taking berberine (500 mg, three times daily) and my fasting blood sugar dropped into the 90s. I’m stoked! Sincerely, Rich.”

So the question I had to answer for myself is, “Why did Rich fail to respond well to my usual program and then do so well on berberine?”

Berberine is a phytochemical (plant chemical) found in many different plants. When used in herbal medicine, the usual sources are barberry, goldenseal or Oregon grape. It’s the main alkaloid of Coptis chinensis, which Asian folk medicine uses to treat diabetes. You also may hear people refer to Coptis chinensis as Chinese Goldthread and Huang-Lian.

Berberine has a lot of uses. It can treat heart disease, immune disorders, digestive problems, eye infections and other infections. I had never heard of it being all that effective in diabetes. So as soon as Rich sent me that message, I looked into it. I found several well-written scientific articles describing an effect of berberine that I could hardly believe. It seems that you can use it as a substitute for insulin.

One study, published just last year, looked at the effect of berberine on how well muscle cells take in sugar. Except when we are actively exercising, sugar cannot get into muscle cells unless insulin is present to escort it in. That’s why blood sugar goes up when patients either don’t have enough insulin or when the insulin they do have doesn’t work effectively, a condition called insulin resistance.

In the study, the researchers exposed rats’ muscle cells to berberine and then examined what happened. What they discovered was amazing.

The berberine solution had the same effect on the cells as insulin.

Just like insulin, the berberine solution activated the same biochemical pathway (protein kinase phosphorylation activation of GLUT-4) that signals cells to take up more sugar. And just like insulin, the greater the amount of berberine they exposed the cells to, the more sugar they took up. All this happened in the absence of any insulin! Now, I understand why Rich had the great result he had. I also see why he was not responding to the program I describe in my book, The Type-2 Diabetes Breakthrough.

I always check the insulin blood levels of all my diabetic patients. This helps determine who will be able to control their diabetes without needing insulin injections. As a general rule, patients with an insulin level greater than 10 micromols per milliliter have enough insulin to get the job done. They should respond really well to natural therapies.

However, there is one small problem with measuring blood insulin levels: They are not always accurate. So even though Rich’s levels looked adequate, they weren’t. That’s why he didn’t respond fully until he added the berberine supplement. Rich needed an insulin-like effect in order to achieve complete control of his sugar levels. This study shows that this is exactly what berberine has to offer.

So from now on, in my diabetic patients with low insulin levels, you can bet that I will be starting them right away on berberine.

My guess from Rich’s experience and also from articles like the one I mentioned here is that many patients who are taking insulin or drugs designed to increase insulin may be able to either stop them or reduce them after starting berberine.

Better Than Metformin For Diabetes

Now, I’d like to tell you about another study that proves this. In fact, this study shows that berberine might just be the best medication there is, natural or otherwise, for diabetes.

This study looked at the effect of berberine on 36 patients. All of them were newly diagnosed cases of type-2 diabetes.

Half of the patients took 500 mg, three times daily of the drug metformin (also known as Glucophage). The other half took berberine (berberine hydrochloride) in the same dose: 500 mg, three times a day. The researchers measured the participants’ blood sugar levels for the next three months. Here’s what happened:

In terms of blood sugar control, both treatments worked equally as well. The fasting blood sugars went down 30 percent. And the sugar levels after eating (called the postprandial levels) went down even more: 45 percent.

But here’s the really astounding thing about berberine. All of this happened within the first two to four weeks of taking the treatment. And unlike with metformin, there were no side effects at all in any of the patients taking berberine. In addition to the sugar levels, the A1C levels went down as well: a full 20 percent. That may not sound like a lot. But it’s a very significant improvement.

In addition to the remarkable effects it had on blood sugar control, berberine had another important effect that metformin did not have.

Triglycerides are the fats found in the bloodstream that the cells metabolize for energy. Since type-2 diabetics do not effectively burn fat (that’s why they get fat), their triglyceride levels are always elevated.

In this study, those patients taking berberine had a reduction in their triglyceride levels of 21 percent. Those taking metformin had no reduction at all. This indicates that berberine not only improves sugar metabolism, it also improves fat metabolism. This might make berberine the most effective overall medication for diabetes that exists today, including pharmaceuticals. In fact, the authors of the study stated that berberine “can serve as a new class of anti-diabetic medication.”

References:
Jun Yina, Huili Xinga, and Jianping Yeb. “Efficacy of Berberine in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes” Metabolism. 2008 May; 57(5): 712-717.

Ma, X., T. Egawa, H. Kimura, K. Karaike, S. Masuda, N. Iwanaka, and T. Hayashi. “Berberine-induced activation of 5′-adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase and glucose transport in rat skeletal muscles.” Metabolism. 2010 November;59(11):1619-27. Epub 2010 April 27.

Depending on what study you look at, the chance of a man being diagnosed with prostate cancer sometime in his life is about one in five or six. That’s a sobering number in itself, but here’s something more to think about. A recent autopsy study on the incidence of prostate cancer shows that it is present even in men as young as 20. And although this may seem shocking, it can pave the way to a better understanding of what causes prostate cancer and, therefore, how you can prevent it.

An autopsy study is one in which researchers ask the question: How often do people have a particular cancer that goes undiagnosed? In order to find the answer, the researchers go to a hospital and obtain tissue from the bodies of people who have died from other causes. They methodically examine the tissue under a microscope, carefully identifying any cellular signs of the cancer they are looking for.

In this case, researchers at Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit, Mich., were curious about prostate cancer. So they obtained the prostate glands of 1,056 men whose doctors had not diagnosed prostate cancer prior to death. The men were between 20 and 80 years old.

Of 186 prostate glands from 20-year-old men, 19 had prostate cancer. That amounts to more than 10 percent of these young men.

As expected, the number of men with prostate cancer increased with age. Among men in their 30s, the researchers found that 31 percent had prostate cancer. When men hit their 40s, the number jumped to 40 percent. And by the time a man is 60 years old, according to this autopsy study, his chances of having prostate cancer is 70 percent.

These numbers are much higher than the numbers of men whose doctors actually diagnose prostate cancer. So how can it be that so many men can have a prostate cancer that goes unnoticed? And what are the implications of this data?

Everyone Older Than 60 Has Cancer

Doctors are finally realizing that most people have cancer in their body. But it’s latent — or hidden — cancer. Latent cancers are so well contained by the immune system that they never get large enough to cause problems. As a result, doctors rarely discover them, unless they discover them by accident. Most of the cancers they discovered in this autopsy study were latent cancers. And, as you can see, they are very common.

Autopsy studies on women, for example, show that by the time a woman is 40 years old, the chance of her having a latent breast cancer is 40 percent.

That sounds terrible, doesn’t it? It’s really not terrible. In fact, the existence of latent cancers is very reassuring. They clearly demonstrate how effective a healthy immune system can be in stopping cancer.

It’s so effective that the great majority of latent cancers never go on to become full-blown cancers. That’s good news. When you start to add up all of the various autopsy studies that are published, you soon realize that every single one of us over the age of 60 has cancer. Actually, we have at least two of these cancers already living in our bodies. But the really important thing about latent cancers is that they can teach us a lot.

The first thing they teach us is that by maintaining a healthy immune system, we can dramatically decrease our chances of dying from cancer.

Take me, for example. I’m 64 years old. Therefore, I have at least two cancers in my body. They are not diagnosed, but they are there. They might be in my colon, my prostate, my lung, wherever. I don’t know where they are because, right now, they are latent. My immune system is covering them.

But what will happen to me if my immune system stops working as well as it has been? What if I start stressing a lot? Or what if I suddenly decide to stop exercising or to abandon a healthy diet? What if, as I get older, I become deficient in the hormones that are so important for optimal immune system function? Or what if I develop a serious injury, a bad dental infection or some other immune-depleting problem? What then?

It’s pretty obvious. If that were to happen, I shouldn’t be too surprised if one of those latent cancers were to progress to a clinically detectable cancer within a few years.

So here’s what the whole idea of latent cancers tells me: It emphasizes the importance of maintaining a lifestyle that optimizes my immune system as best as I can. It also emphasizes the importance of discovering a latent cancer that’s breaking out into a full-blown tumor as early as possible. That way I can get a handle on it before it gets too far down the road.

What’s the best way to do this?

The PSA Test For Prostate Cancer Is Less Than Perfect

Your doctor will tell you to get a PSA test and a digital rectal exam every year. But this autopsy study suggests that’s not nearly enough. All of the men in the study had a normal result on both of these tests. In fact, another study says these tests are not very accurate at all.

In 2004, the New England Journal of Medicine published a study that reveals just how inaccurate a “normal” PSA reading can be.

The authors of the study wondered how often men with both a normal PSA (less than 4 ng/ml) and a normal rectal examination actually had prostate cancer.

These researchers must have done some fast talking. Somehow, they managed to talk 2,950 men into having their prostates biopsied simply as part of their research. None of the men had any indication at all that they were any more likely to have prostate cancer than the average man with normal tests.

What they found was startling. Of these nearly 3,000 men, 449 men actually had cancer despite their normal test scores. That’s one in seven.

That means that for every seven men who have normal findings, one of them has cancer. And the doctors missed it. What’s more, the actual number of the PSA score doesn’t offer much help either.

• 6.6 percent of the 449 had an extremely low PSA that was less than 0.5.
• 10.1 percent had PSAs between 0.6 and 1.0.
• 17.0 percent had PSAs between 1.1 to 2.0.
• 23.9 percent had values of 2.1 to 3.0.
• And 26.9 percent had levels between 3.1 to 4.0.

What A PSA Score Really Means For Your Prostate

The best way to know if you have prostate cancer at the earliest possible stage is not the PSA or the digital rectal exam. The best indication is a test called PSA velocity testing.

With PSA velocity testing, it’s possible to diagnose an early cancer even when the PSA and the rectal exam are normal.

PSA velocity describes how high the value of a man’s PSA tests increase in one year. For example, if a you have a PSA test and it’s 0.5 higher than it was the year before, you have a PSA velocity score of 0.5. If the last time you had a PSA was five years ago, and this year’s test was 1.0 higher, then your PSA velocity is 0.2, or 1.0 divided by the five years.

As a man ages, due to the normal age-related increase in prostate size, his PSA is likely to rise ever so slightly. But as long as the PSA velocity is minimal, the odds are that if he has a latent cancer, his immune system is still keeping it in check. In fact, a PSA velocity of 0.03 or less per year has been shown to be accurate proof that no prostate cancer exists. That’s an optimal velocity. Although the values may vary slightly from year to year, there should not be any consistent overall increase greater than 0.03.

However, a PSA velocity of 0.15 ng/ml over three consecutive years indicates problems. This means it’s likely that a latent cancer is starting to break out into a full-blown low-grade cancer. A faster PSA velocity is even more ominous. When the PSA velocity is greater than 0.35 ng/ml over a three-year period, the odds are that the latent cancer is turning into a high-grade cancer.

And all of this is true even if the highest PSA number is still in the “normal range.” So any PSA velocity greater than 0.15 should be a cause for immediate treatment.

But I’m not recommending surgery, radiation or even a biopsy in this early state. After all, at this point, the elevated velocity probably just represents a latent cancer and not an immediately dangerous situation.

Instead of aggressive procedures, I have found that in this early state, the great majority of men almost always respond to natural therapies. These include exercise, changes in diet, supplements, stress control, etc. Most of the time, that’s all it takes to stop the PSA increase. And in many cases, it can actually reverse the disease.

Self-Diagnosing Prostate Cancer

All men should have a PSA performed on their 40th birthday. For a 40-year-old, the value should be less than 0.6 ng/ml. If it’s higher than this, he should start a natural-therapy program right away.

Regardless of how old you are when you start having your PSA, keep a good record of each test score. As the years pass, get out your calculator and determine your PSA velocity. If you haven’t been getting annual checks, you can still figure out your velocity by determining the difference in values between your last PSA reading and your current reading. Then divide this difference by the number of years between readings. That will give you your PSA velocity. As I said earlier, if your PSA velocity is less than 0.03, you are home free, at least for the time being. But if it’s greater than 0.15, it’s time to pay attention to your prostate.

References:
Brawer, M.K., M.A. Rennels, R.B. Nagle, R. Schifman, and J.A. Gaines. “Serum prostate-specific antigen and prostate pathology in men having simple prostatectomy.” Am J Clin Pathol. 1989 December;92(6):760-4.

Thompson, I.M., D.K Pauler, P.J. Goodman, et al. “Prevalence of Prostate Cancer among Men with a Prostate-Specific Antigen Level 4.0 ng per Milliliter.” N Engl J Med 2004; 350:2239-2246, May 27, 2004.