[HN Gopher] Berberine reduces arterial plaque in humans by decre...
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       Berberine reduces arterial plaque in humans by decreasing TMAO in
       the gut
        
       Author : birriel
       Score  : 14 points
       Date   : 2023-11-28 19:31 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.nature.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.nature.com)
        
       | pvaldes wrote:
       | Coptis is in the family Ranunculaceae. Coptidis Rhizoma is the
       | dried root, not the scientific name.
       | 
       | Ranunculaceae are really good in two fields: making beautiful
       | flowers and developing strong toxics; so I would recommend to be
       | extremely cautious with this. never underestimate this family.
       | Undesirable collateral effects are totally expected.
        
         | cinntaile wrote:
         | According to Google you can buy just berberine as a supplement.
         | Berberine can be found in several plants so it might be
         | extracted from something that is not toxic?
        
       | KennyBlanken wrote:
       | This is a Chinese lab with a study pushing "traditional" Chinese
       | "medicine". TCM has no basis in science and has been heavily
       | pushed by the Chinese government because as millions of Chinese
       | were lifted out of poverty, they started expecting decent medical
       | care and there was no other way to provide it except hand-wave-y
       | nonsense about herbs and jabbing needles. It's medicine theater.
       | 
       | Nature should read their own journal once in a while:
       | 
       | https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2017.23038
        
         | blacksmith_tb wrote:
         | I don't think that's entirely fair, the "barefoot doctors" of
         | rural China use both Western medicine and TCM[1]. And while
         | acupuncture has somewhat ambiguous research around it, it's
         | clear that plenty of herbs contain compounds which are
         | medically useful (and that's true for Western/modern
         | pharmaceuticals from aspirin to Tamoxifen). And of course
         | Berberine[2] has generated lots of other interest recently.
         | 
         | 1: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12259447/
         | 
         | 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berberine#Research
        
         | sudosysgen wrote:
         | While it's sometimes exaggerated, using herbs from traditional
         | medicine and trying to find pharmaceutical compounds from then
         | is totally normal and has been done successfully for almost a
         | century, both in China and the West.
        
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       (page generated 2023-11-28 23:01 UTC)