Bergamot & Artichoke for Cholesterol

Bergamot is a citrus tree, native to Italy.  Its fruit is green and wrinkly and tart.  The peel has an otherworldly aroma.  If you’ve ever had a cup of top quality Earl Grey tea, you know what I’m talking about.  That’s because Earl Grey is just black tea, scented with bergamot peel oil.  Bergamot is also a medicine.  Extracts of the fruit have been shown to have an often significant, sometimes dramatic, effect on blood cholesterol and other lipid markers of heart disease.  A 2019 review of a dozen clinical trials linked bergamot (in different doses, over different time frames) to drops in total cholesterol between 12.3 – 31.3%, LDL from 7.6 – 40%, and triglycerides from 11.3 – 39.5%.  Those are some impressive numbers.   

And artichoke is… well, we all know what artichoke is!   Botanically, artichoke is a kind of thistle.  (Which suggests it’s probably going to be good for the liver).  (Which it is).  Mostly, artichoke is one of our best medicines to lower cholesterol and other lipid markers of heart disease.  (To be clear, the leaf is used.  Artichoke as a food probably won’t accomplish much here).  Two systematic reviews on artichoke – one from 2018, the other from 2021 – found reliable drops in total cholesterol, LDL, and triglycerides.   

So, if you’ve got high cholesterol or triglycerides, you’d probably benefit from some artichoke or bergamot.  Or both. 

Why both?    

Well, most people won’t need both.  Both work just fine on their own.  Usually.  HOWEVER… 

Herbs are complex medicines.  A drug is one compound; an herb, many.  A drug has one mechanism; an herb may have many.  In the case of bergamot and artichoke, they both lower total cholesterol, LDL, and triglycerides, but they both do it in multiple, and different, ways.  Which is to say they’re not redundant; they’re complementary, even synergistic. 

Bergamot appears to target multiple metabolic pathways involved in cholesterol synthesis (basically, it helps us make cholesterol).  Artichoke appears to target mostly different metabolic pathways to reduce cholesterol synthesis, but also increases cholesterol secretion.  So you make less, absorb less, and get rid of more.  Plus, it makes your liver healthier.  In other words, they both target cholesterol from a few different angles, which gets you the same results while putting less of a strain on any one pathway.   

A 2022 study examined 60 people who in previous studies had responded poorly to bergamot.  Most people who take bergamot do get better.  These “tough patients” didn’t.  For the next two months, they were assigned to take bergamot and artichoke, or just placebo.  The results weren’t huge, but they were enough to make a difference.  Total cholesterol dropped by 13 mg/dl, and LDL (“bad”) cholesterol dropped by 17 md/dl.  They also lost weight and got thinner waistlines, even though they had been instructed not to change how they ate.   

It’s not unreasonable to have some small trepidation combining multiple drugs with each other.  What if they interact?  It’s also not unreasonable to have similar concerns about herbs.  However, with herbs, we need to really consider the possibility of synergy.  In the same way a great recipe transcends its star ingredient, a great herbal formula can transcend its primary medicine.  Not to say combining two cholesterol herbs is a “great herbal formula.”  For that, you want to look to the Chinese and Indian traditions, or a skilled and thoughtful practitioner, anywere.  Still, combining artichoke and bergamot is a start.