Health Claims

Some melatonin pills you can buy in the U.S. have strange, unknown chemicals in them—up to 1% of the pill—which isn't supposed to be there, even though they pass safety checks for the stuff they're supposed to contain.

Descriptive

A small test of 10 melatonin pills bought in the U.S. found that 4 of them had way more or way less melatonin than what was printed on the bottle — so you might not be getting what you think you're paying for.

Descriptive

Fibrates are pills that lower bad cholesterol, but they seem to protect your heart even more than just lowering cholesterol should — so they might be doing something extra to keep your heart healthy.

Mechanistic

Drugs designed to lower 'bad' cholesterol (LDL) by blocking CETP didn't protect people's hearts as much as scientists thought they would—so maybe these drugs have hidden side effects, or lowering LDL alone isn't enough to prevent heart problems.

Correlational

Different non-statin ways to lower 'bad' cholesterol—like special diets, pills, or even surgery—seem to cut heart attacks and strokes just as well as statins, as long as they lower cholesterol by the same amount.

Causal

Lowering your 'bad' cholesterol (LDL) reduces your risk of heart attacks and heart-related deaths — for people who’ve never had heart disease, each big drop in LDL lowers risk by about 1.5%, but for those who already had a heart problem, the same drop cuts risk by nearly 5%.

Correlational

Berberine, a natural supplement, works a lot like statin drugs to lower bad cholesterol by helping your liver pull more cholesterol out of your blood — kind of like both are using the same key to unlock the same door.

Mechanistic

Both berberine (a natural supplement) and statins (cholesterol drugs) help lower bad cholesterol by making more LDL receptors in your liver—but they work in different ways. Statins tell your liver to make more receptors from scratch, while berberine helps the existing instructions for making receptors last longer so more receptors get built.

Mechanistic

People with high cholesterol who took a natural supplement called berberine hydrochloride, two pills a day for three months, saw their blood fat levels (triglycerides) drop significantly—from pretty high to much lower.

Quantitative

Taking a natural supplement called berberine hydrochloride twice a day for three months helped people with high bad cholesterol lower it by about 25%, without changing their good cholesterol levels.

Quantitative

When hamsters ate a fatty, cholesterol-rich diet and were given a daily pill of berberine for 10 days, their bad cholesterol levels dropped a lot—like going from really high to much healthier levels.

Quantitative

Goldenseal, a plant-based supplement, may help lower 'bad' cholesterol in animals and lab tests by telling the liver to pull more cholesterol out of the blood.

Mechanistic

Some plants like goldenseal might help berberine (a natural compound) stay longer in your liver by blocking a pump that usually kicks it out—this lets berberine work better to lower bad cholesterol.

Mechanistic

Berberine, a natural compound, helps lower bad cholesterol by making liver cells produce more LDL receptors, but the liver kicks it out too fast—like a bouncer removing a guest. Canadine, a similar compound, isn’t kicked out, so it works better and longer.

Mechanistic

Goldenseal, a herbal supplement, has some mysterious chemicals (besides berberine) that help your liver pull more bad cholesterol out of your blood—making it even better at lowering cholesterol than berberine by itself.

Mechanistic

A natural herb called goldenseal might help lower bad cholesterol more effectively than a similar compound called berberine, by helping the liver remove more cholesterol from the blood — based on tests in human liver cells and hamsters.

Mechanistic

A natural compound called berberine can significantly lower bad cholesterol in hamsters with high cholesterol, and it does this by helping their liver make more of a special protein that pulls cholesterol out of the blood.

Mechanistic

Berberine, a natural compound, helps your liver cells make more LDL receptors—these are like little doors that pull bad cholesterol out of your blood—by keeping the instructions for making those doors from falling apart, and it needs a specific cell signal (ERK) to do this.

Mechanistic

Taking berberine pills every day for 3 months can lower your bad cholesterol and fat levels in the blood by a lot—like cutting your cholesterol by nearly a third.

Quantitative

Berberine, a natural compound, may help liver cells make more LDL receptors — the 'bouncers' that pull bad cholesterol out of your blood — by protecting the instructions for making those receptors from being destroyed too soon.

Mechanistic

Berberine, a natural compound, helped hamsters with high cholesterol by making their livers produce more receptors that grab bad cholesterol out of the blood—like putting up more trash cans to clean up the streets.

Mechanistic

Taking berberine pills for 3 months helped people with high cholesterol lower their bad fats in the blood—cholesterol dropped by almost a third, and triglycerides by over a third—so it might be a natural way to help manage cholesterol.

Quantitative

Taking berberine, a natural supplement, might help lower your chances of developing small growths in the colon that can turn into cancer, compared to not taking anything at all.

Correlational

Taking berberine, a natural supplement, may help lower signs of body inflammation—like CRP and IL-6—compared to not taking it, especially if you have long-term health issues like diabetes or obesity.

Correlational