I don't have the time to get overly involved, as I and others have repeatedly spoken out on both of these. I will leave you with a few exceptionlly taken out of context side effects with Met that gets WAY blown out of proportion, is that of induced lactic acidosis and altered thyroid hormones.
Sure metformin has its pitfalls, as does berberine.
So both of you understand, that link is owned and written by Ken Stephens and not that of Dr. Jonathan Wright. In so, Both, Mr. Stephens and Dr. Wright like to injudiciously selectively pick their mediocre "inconclusive and observational studies". What's even more troubling is the dubious masquerading they purpose as if berberine comes without consequence.
I've known of Dr. Wright's stance on Met vs berberine for quite some time. In which doesn't change my perspective of either drug, yes one is a synthetic compound and the other is considered a botanical or classified as a nutraceutical (medicinal medicine) by some practitioners. Undoubtedly, both have very similar PK/PD properties, tho we can only label one a
drug according to the FDA. Mainly in part of that as quoted below:
Yet when we thumb through the rubbish of clinical literature on any said botanicals, what's the main theme of theses studies? For the most part they're noticing "drug like effects", correct? So, in the context of the this, does this mean there's no possible adverse effects that comes from these botanicals since it's not truly classified as a drug, per se?
Maybe these incoherent buffoons should further their research on what berberine has been purposed to affect, such as; cytochrome isoenzymes, organic cation transporters and testicular gene expression of 3ẞ-HSD, 17ẞ-HSD1 and 3 to name a few. I can cherry pick, too.
(Salpeter SR, et al 003 Nov 24;163(21):2594-602)
As for the incidence of hYPERthyroidism (low TSH) not hYPO. This again, the said oppositionals against Met have a propensity to cherry pick their citations without further investigations to quantify their small population based observational studies.
(Xianghui Meng et al, April 2017)
I'll end by saying, both of these individuals, along with others tend to cherry pick and sugar coat their very weak " "inconclusive and observational studies" then declare incontrovertibly as fact.
I'm not hating on berberine. Tho, these oppositionals fail to mention the possibilities of consequent.
Do yourself a favor and explore refuted citations. Then choose your poison as you may please.