Tier 2 — strong

Glucose-lowering effect of berberine on type 2 diabetes: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Xie W, Su F, Wang G, Peng Z, Xu Y, Zhang Y, Xu N, Hou K, Hu Z, Chen Y, Chen R

Frontiers in pharmacology 2022 13:1015045

Bibliography

PubMed: PMID 36467075
PubMed Central: PMC9709280
DOI: 10.3389/fphar.2022.1015045
Funding: Funding was not established from the accessible source; this is not a declaration of no funding.
Competing interests: The authors declared no competing interests in the publication.

Design	Systematic review and meta-analysis
Model	Published human studies
Sample	37 studies; 3048 participants
Intervention	Evidence synthesis; interventions and comparators vary across included studies
Duration	No new treatment; included-study durations vary
Endpoints	Pooled clinical or metabolic outcomes; Risk of bias and heterogeneity; Adverse-event reporting

The pooled HbA1c difference was approximately -0.63 percentage points, with lower fasting and post-meal glucose.

The pooled HbA1c difference was approximately -0.63 percentage points, with lower fasting and post-meal glucose.

Trial quality, background treatment and baseline glucose affect interpretation; short adverse-event follow-up does not exclude rare harms.

Editorial review

Last verified 22 October 2026