Constituents: Isoquinoline alkaloids, flavonoids, tannins, phenolic compounds, triterpenes, sterols, flavonols.

NB. Our range of botanicals are all grown, harvested and dried without the use of agri-chemicals, non-irradiated and GMO free - see our Quality page for Quality Management & Certification Documents. Laboratory tested for identification and compliance to the British and European Pharmacopoeia standards, and are human grade.

Please be aware that if you're purchasing our dried botanicals for human use, our dried range is cut to appropriate sizes for feeding to horses.

Look into any garden or park and you'll likely see barberry as a beautiful maroon ornamental shrub. However, it's also a really versatile herb used in Western, Ayurvedic and Traditional Chinese Medicine, with its benefits being recorded from as far back as 650 BC when blood-cleansing properties of the barberry were noted on a clay tablet in the library of King Ashurbanipal of Assyria.

Mainly the roots and stem bark are used as an alterative or blood purifier in the spring, as a cholagogue and hepatic for conditions affecting the liver and gallbladder, as an antimocrobial for diarrhea, dysentery, and parasitical infections, and also as an eye wash. With mild laxative effects, it's also used as a bitter tonic to improve digestion. It's also useful for conditions associated with inflammatory processes, gynecological conditions such as polycystic ovarian syndrome, diabetes, and hyperlipidemia.

Our particular interest in barberry is due to its alkaloid berberine , with many studies on its antidiabetic effects, with research finding that in patients with type 2 diabetes it significantly decreased serum glucose, insulin, triglycerides, total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and apolipoprotein B. Studies concluded that barberry can regulate glucose metabolism by improving glucose catabolism via the glycolysis pathway, stimulate insulin secretion or improve insulin function, and potentially decrease glucose uptake.

• Barberry is generally considered safe when consumed orally and within the recommended dose (Arayne et al., 2007).
• Berberine is metabolised in the liver by the enzymes CYP2D6, CYP2C9, or CYP3A4 (Imenshahidi & Hosseinzadeh, 2019), and therefore has the potential to interact with a wide range of prescription drugs, for example phenylbutazone (Mills & Bone, 2005).
• Not to be used during pregnancy as berberine may increase levels of bilirubin , which can be harmful to a foetus (Chan, 1993 in Arayne et al., 2007).
• There are no reliable studies on berberine’s effects during lactation/nursing so we don't recommend feeding it to nursing mares.