The most important page on this site, and the one where every sentence is sourced.
The Metaglucent label lists no side effects, but a few ingredients can interact with medications.
Chromium may add to metformin or other diabetes drugs and raise the risk of low blood sugar, and berberine can affect CYP2D6, 2C9 and 3A4 enzymes. The label excludes anyone under 18, pregnant or nursing.
If you take metformin, a sulfonylurea or insulin, speak to the clinician who manages your diabetes before you buy this product. Not after the first bottle. Before the first capsule.
That is the firmest sentence on this website and it is the one we would keep if we had to delete every other line. It is not a prediction that something bad will happen; it is a statement that the question belongs to somebody who knows your numbers.
The label says a version of the same thing in its own caution panel: consult with a physician prior to use especially if you are taking a medication or have a medical condition. On most supplements that is boilerplate. On this one it describes a large share of the people who will read it.
A photograph of the Supplement Facts panel. It names all seventeen ingredients, and it is far more useful to a prescriber than the product name, which tells them nothing at all.
This capsule carries 100 mcg of chromium as chromium picolinate, which is 286% of the 35 mcg Daily Value.
The NIH Office of Dietary Supplements states it directly: chromium supplements might have an additive effect with metformin or other antidiabetes medications and thus might increase the risk of hypoglycemia.
Additive is the operative word. The concern is not that chromium is dangerous; it is that two things pushing the same direction can go further together than either was meant to on its own.
Chromium has no established Tolerable Upper Intake Level. That is not a clean bill of health — it means the evidence was judged insufficient to set one.
Berberine sits third by weight in the blend, so its hard ceiling is 176 mg. Its actual amount is not published.
Memorial Sloan Kettering's About Herbs monograph reports that in human studies, repeated oral intake of berberine at a dose used in some studies significantly decreased 2D6, 2C9 and 3A4 activities.
Those three cytochrome P450 enzymes metabolise a very large share of ordinary prescription medicines — statins, some antidepressants, some anticoagulants, and a great deal else. Slowing them down can raise the level of a drug in the body.
This is why the caution on this page extends beyond diabetes medicines to any prescription at all. If you take anything regularly, the panel is worth showing to a pharmacist.
The same monograph is candid about the other side of the ledger: the benefit studies are of limited quality and more studies are needed.
The cinnamon on this panel is named as Cinnamomum cassia. That matters, because cassia contains considerably more coumarin than Ceylon cinnamon does.
NCCIH notes that interactions between coumarin, a chemical found in cassia cinnamon, and the liver have been reported, and that prolonged use could be a concern for sensitive people, including those with liver disease.
NCCIH is equally clear about the benefit side: it is unclear whether cinnamon supplementation is helpful for diabetes or weight loss.
With no amount printed for the cinnamon and no coumarin figure anywhere, the daily exposure from this capsule is unknowable. If you have a liver condition, that unknowability is itself the reason to ask first.
Chromium, berberine, gymnema, cinnamon, bitter melon and banaba have all been studied for lowering blood glucose.
Five of those six have no published amount. So nobody — not us, not a pharmacist, not your doctor — can say how much of each is in a capsule or how much it contributes.
NCCIH's general guidance covers exactly this situation: using herbal supplements such as cinnamon with conventional diabetes drugs can cause unwanted side effects, and people who take diabetes drugs should tell their health care providers about any herbal supplements they are taking.
It is worth knowing what a low blood sugar episode is commonly described as feeling like: shakiness, sweating, a racing heart, confusion, irritability or sudden hunger. That is a medical matter rather than a supplement one, and the response to it belongs with your clinician, not with a website.
NCCIH says conventionally formulated oral turmeric or curcumin is likely safe in the recommended amounts for up to 2 or 3 months. Turmeric leads this blend by weight, no amount is printed, and the label gives no duration at all.
25 mcg is 1,000 IU, printed correctly as 125% of the Daily Value. The adult upper intake level is 100 mcg, or 4,000 IU. This capsule sits comfortably under it alone — add it to whatever else you take before deciding.
No side effects are listed on the label, which is not the same as none existing. Digestive upset is the commonly reported effect for both berberine and turmeric at higher intakes. With thirteen unquantified ingredients, an unexpected effect cannot be traced to any one of them.
Anyone under the age of 18. Anyone pregnant. Anyone nursing. Those three are named in the caution panel and there is nothing to interpret.
Berberine adds a specific caution about infants on top of the label's own nursing exclusion.
And the label's fourth clause covers the rest: consult with a physician prior to use especially if you are taking a medication or have a medical condition.
Do not exceed the recommended dose. On a capsule where thirteen ingredients have no published amount, exceeding it means exceeding something nobody has measured.
Every source above was opened and read. Studies that found nothing are included on purpose.
It is a compilation of what named public sources say about ingredients printed on this label, published so that you can take it to somebody qualified. If you are taking medicine for blood sugar, that person is the one to ask, and asking before the first capsule is better than asking after the first month.
For a healthy adult not taking medicine, nothing on this panel stands out as alarming at the printed amounts. That sentence carries two conditions, and the second one does most of the work: this is a product bought overwhelmingly by people who are taking medicine. The label’s own caution panel says to consult a physician before use, especially if you are taking a medication or have a medical condition, and on this formula that is the operative sentence rather than the boilerplate.
Ask the clinician who manages your diabetes before you buy, not after. This is the firmest line on the site. The NIH states that chromium supplements might have an additive effect with metformin or other antidiabetes medications and thus might increase the risk of hypoglycemia, and there are five further ingredients in this blend studied for lowering blood sugar, all of them at amounts nobody has published.
It may. Berberine is third by weight here and has been reported to significantly decrease CYP2D6, 2C9 and 3A4 activity in human studies, and those enzymes clear a long list of ordinary medicines. NCCIH’s general guidance is blunt: people who take diabetes drugs should tell their health care providers about any herbal supplements they are taking. The same holds for every other prescription.
Two things. The cassia cinnamon, for the coumarin point above, and berberine, which is cleared hepatically. Neither has a published amount. Take the panel to the clinician who manages the condition.
Shakiness, sweating, a racing heart, confusion, irritability or sudden hunger are the commonly described signs, and they are a medical matter rather than a supplement one. If you take medicine that lowers blood sugar and you add something else that may lower it too, that is a conversation with a clinician and, if they advise it, closer monitoring — not a thing to work out from a website.
None are listed on the label, which is not the same as none existing. Digestive upset is the commonly reported effect for berberine and for turmeric at higher intakes. With thirteen ingredients at unpublished amounts, an unexpected effect cannot be traced to a single one of them, which is a practical argument for simpler formulas.
No. The label says it outright: not for use for those under the age of 18 or pregnant or nursing mothers. Berberine additionally carries a specific caution about infants.
No. The label excludes under-18s, and the brief repeats it.
It is nearly three times the Daily Value, and chromium has no established Tolerable Upper Intake Level, which is a different thing from being proven safe at any dose. The number that matters here is not the percentage but the interaction: the NIH Office of Dietary Supplements states that chromium supplements might have an additive effect with metformin or other antidiabetes medications and thus might increase the risk of hypoglycemia.
It is third by weight in the blend, and it is the ingredient with the widest interaction profile on the panel. Memorial Sloan Kettering’s About Herbs monograph reports that in human studies, repeated oral intake of berberine at a dose used in some studies significantly decreased CYP2D6, 2C9 and 3A4 activity — three enzyme systems that clear a great many common prescription medicines. The same monograph says the benefit studies are of limited quality and that more studies are needed.
It is cassia cinnamon, named on the panel as <i>Cinnamomum cassia</i>. NCCIH notes that interactions between coumarin, a chemical found in cassia cinnamon, and the liver have been reported, and that it is unclear whether cinnamon supplementation is helpful for diabetes or weight loss. With no amount published, there is no way to say how much coumarin a daily capsule delivers.
One bottle is 30 capsules: thirty days at one a day, finishing with half the 60-day guarantee still to run. The price is shown at checkout.
Order NowRead the label firstNo price was published to us. We print no figure we have not seen ourselves. · 60-day guarantee from purchase · Not for under 18, pregnancy or nursing