Originally Posted by TheBlackPumpkin

Metformin was introduced as a medication in 1957 in France and in the U.S in 1995. The berberine studies you're referring to, some of them were RCT's done in China, the earliest in 2004, there hasn't been much of a scientific consensus on it outside of traditional chinese medicine until as late as 2020. (fine, I don't consider the FDA approving something the holy grail of medicine) but when we're talking about U.S based medicine, there are certain requirements for a study to be considered valid by the FDA and for a drug to obtain FDA approval. Now, as it stands, berberine as far as I'm aware is sold in dietary supplements in the states, which isn't regulated in the slightest in the U.S. If you want to take berberine for your diabetes, nothing is stopping you from doing that.

But guess what? Berberine has almost the exact same side effect profile as metformin. Some people react to it better than metformin, some dont. Some people also don't have issues with metformin. I misspoke earlier, in that, Berberine isn't just a "spice" it's an extracted organic chemical, just like the compound key to Metformin. I more meant that, Cinnamon and Turmeric on their own aren't going to control someones insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. Doctor's aren't big pharma, while there are good and bad doctors the vast majority of doctors would rather give you options other than going on medication and in my experience with Type II diabetes, that option is generally, eating a low carb, high fiber and protein diet, eating normal portions, eating 5-6 small meals a day instead of 2-3 large meals, and exercising regularly. But virtually no one is going to do all of that, or maybe their condition is more advanced and that's no longer an option on its own. That's where medications come in.

I just don't really understand the stance that berberine is somehow better or more "natural" when it's almost the exact same class of chemical compound derived from a plant, just like metformin. As for the spices themselves, you won't find a single doctor treating a patient with diabetes that tells them not to eat cinnamon and turmeric.

Listen I'm not going to sit here and pretend there's not a lot of money in the pharmaseutical industry and things are never profit driven. They clearly are. But it's not like you're saying there's a proven cure for diabetes that big pharma is keeping us from getting because they make too much money off of metformin sales. You're suggesting that there's a compound that's virutally the same effectiveness as Metformin but derived from a different plant and they just don't want us to know about it / have access to it? I mean for reference, a month supply of metformin without insurance is about $15-20. If you have insurance, it costs like $4 for a 90 day supply in my experience. I would suggest that, perhaps the bigger fish to fry is the ridiculous amounts of added sugars and fats in our food to make them more palatable and addictive to our brains leading to morbid obesity and diabetes in the first place. Pharmaseutical researchers are spending their lives looking for a way to reverse the damage that our lifestyle and what's in our hyper-processed diet causes. Or maybe the fact that insurance won't pay for a gym membership or exercise equipment (although fun fact, based on evidence and research, even if they did, people don't make use of them as a very large percentage of the population, so it's just wasted money for them)

I could also go a lot into how the number 1 cause of diabetes is obesity and obesity is massively contributed to by genetics and your brain rewiring itself to keep yourself obese because it views it as a good thing to have extra fat. But I'm going off on a bit of a tangent now.