Comment · Wed, September 9, 2020 · ND Owner
Tongkat ali and berberine Interactions?
Original post in this thread
akks11 · 8 points
I recently received NDs tongkat Ali and I’m enjoying it as a pre workout. I stopped taking berberine though as a precaution since I know berberine interacts with so many compounds and as far as I know affects many different things in the body.
Any experiences with both or some info about their interaction would be greatly appreciated.
What they were answering
umbrella_term · 2 points
Yup, according to wikipedia, coconut oil is about 10% sodium caprate.
Speaking of bioavailability, I've been thinking. You said the green tea extract dose you recommend is safe because it's only 1/3 of the dose where liver damage was found. Dose making the poison, etc. Does this change if we're taking a more bioavailable form, such as your new coated extract with piperine?
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb · ND Owner
It's hard to say for 100% certainty. However, piperine just inhibits the glucuronidation in the small intestine, and gastrointestinal transit. It doesn't inhibit it in hepatic microsomes. So it should not put any more strain on the liver. In fact, it might help it. Intestinal microbiota actually are responsible for a lot of the variable metabolism of green tea catechins. Using piperine to improve absorption, and enteric coating them, helps to get them out of the GI tract quicker. This would reduce the time they could be metabolized by intestinal microbiota. It's very possible the limited liver damage that some people have gotten from EGCG is due to toxic metabolites being created by bacteria in the GI tract. I've been taking our enteric coated EGCG with piperine daily, and recently just had a full blood panel done. My liver values were perfect. You could always get a liver function test after a few weeks of use if you are concerned, but I don't think it is a very large issue.