Berberine stacked with semaglutide, anyone tracked fasting glucose and HRV on both?

Posted by greg_codes in Weight Loss & Metabolic - 1 points, 2 comments.

Been on sema for about 14 weeks now, doing the standard titration up to 1mg weekly. Fasting glucose settled around 4.9-5.1 mmol/L which is decent for me. Resting HR dropped about 6 bpm since starting which tracks with the weight coming off. HRV went up maybe 8-10ms on average, nothing crazy.

Started adding berberine 500mg twice daily with meals about three weeks ago, mostly out of curiosity about the AMPK angle and whether it'd do anything on top of the GLP-1. Ngl the first week was rough on the gut, heaps of cramping and loose stools, almost bailed. Stuck it out and it settled by week two.

What i noticed was fasting glucose dipped a bit further, sitting around 4.6-4.8 most mornings now. Could just be the continued weight loss though, hard to separate. HRV actually trended down slightly, like 5ms on average, which was unexpected? Wondering if the GI inflammation from early berberine was messing with my overnight recovery scores.

Has anyone else run berberine alongside a GLP-1 and actually tracked the numbers? Keen to hear if the glucose effect was additive for you or if it felt redundant. Also wondering about the CYP3A4 interaction stuff, i don't take anything else that would matter but still want to be careful.

Comments

• student748: For what it is worth the HRV dip is interesting, i'd put money on the GI disruption being the main driver there. Your gut and vagus nerve are pretty tightly linked so even mild inflammation or cramping can tank overnight recovery scores for a week or two. The fact it settled suggests that theory holds up. The glucose drop being hard to separate from continued weight loss is a fair call, only way to really tell would be if your weight plateaued during those three weeks and glucose still dipped.
• greg_codes: Yeah the vagus nerve thing makes heaps of sense, hadn't thought about that link directly. Weight actually plateaued those three weeks funnily enough, so the glucose dip might be real? Not on anything that'd clash with CYP3A4 ngl, just the sema and basic supplements. Will keep an eye on it though, good catch. Did you run berberine solo first or always stack it?

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