Does berberine cure diarrhea?

Diseases are very common in people's daily lives. Many factors in life can cause the occurrence of diseases, especially stomach diseases. This situation will occur if you accidentally eat some expired food. Some people use traditional Chinese medicine to treat this disease because traditional Chinese medicine treatment causes relatively less harm to the body. So, does berberine cure diarrhea?

First, can berberine cure diarrhea? Berberine is an important biological base and has been used in traditional Chinese medicine for a long time. It can be extracted from plants such as Coptis chinensis, Phellodendron chinense, and Tripterygium wilfordii. It has significant antibacterial effect. The commonly used berberine hydrochloride is also called berberine hydrochloride. Berberine can fight against pathogenic microorganisms and has inhibitory effects on many bacteria such as Shigella dysenteriae, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Pneumococcus, Salmonella typhi and Corynebacterium diphtheriae. It has the strongest effect on Shigella dysenteriae and is often used to treat bacterial gastroenteritis, dysentery and other digestive tract diseases. It is cheap and has few side effects, so many families prepare berberine for emergencies.

Second, to determine whether diarrhea can be treated, we need to first know what causes diarrhea. There are two main causes of diarrhea: infectious diarrhea and non-infectious diarrhea. Infectious diarrhea includes viral (such as rotavirus) infection, bacterial (such as Shigella dysenteriae) infection, fungal and parasitic infection, etc. Non-infectious diarrhea includes diarrhea caused by chemicals and drugs, diarrhea caused by the use of cathartics (such as magnesium sulfate, phenolphthalein, etc.) and parasympathomimetic drugs (such as neostigmine), food poisoning, intestinal allergic diseases, etc. It is worth noting that berberine can only treat infectious diarrhea and is powerless against non-infectious diarrhea. That is to say, if you have food poisoning or are naturally allergic to certain foods, taking berberine will not help.

Can berberine cure diarrhea? Although clinical studies have shown that berberine has relatively few side effects, it is not suitable for everyone. Especially patients with hemolytic anemia and pregnant women should be strictly prohibited from taking berberine. Of course, the absence of side effects does not mean that it is fine. Long-term use of this drug can easily lead to intestinal flora imbalance, resulting in symptoms such as nausea and constipation. Moreover, as time goes by, the drug resistance of the flora will also increase, and when taking the drug again, you will find that the efficacy has decreased.