The effect of berberine supplementation on lipid profile and obesity indices: An umbrella review of meta-analysis

Several meta-analyses reported berberine supplementation improves lipid profile and obesity indices, but findings remain conflicting. Therefore, we carried out an umbrella review of meta-analysis in order to examine whether berberine supplementation on lipid profile and obesity indices. A systematic search was conducted on PubMed, Scopus, Embase, Web of Science, and Google Scholar up to December 2022. Berberine supplementation was effective in reducing low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) (ESSMD: -0.56mg/dL; 95% CI: -0.74 to -0.38, p< 0.001), total cholesterol (TC) (ESSMD: -0.57mg/dL, 95% CI: -0.69 to -0.44, p< 0.001), triglyceride (TG) (ESSMD: -0.47mg/dL; 95% CI: -0.56 to -0.37, p< 0.001) according to SMD analysis. In addition, berberine significantly increased high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) (ESSMD: 0.14mg/dL; 95% CI: 0.08 to 0.20, p < 0.001) according to SMD analysis. Also, the findings showed that berberine resulted in a significant decrease in waist circumference (WC) (ES WMD: -1.30cm; 95% CI: -1.91 to -0.69, p< 0.001), but not in body weight (ESWMD: -0.86kg; 95% CI: -2.12 to 0.41), body mass index (BMI) (ESWMD: -0.57kg/m²; 95% CI: -1.21 to 0.06, p= 0.078, and ESSMD: -0.28kg/m²; 95% CI: -070 to 0.14, p= 0.186), and waist-to-height ratio (WHR) levels (ESSMD: -0.40; 95% CI: -1.26 to 0.47, p= 0.369). The results of our study revealed that the supplementation of berberine could be effective in improving WC, and lipid profile, although the impact of this supplement on obesity indices needs further investigation.