0
0

METABOLIC RECOVERY

We’ve spent the last two years talking about GLP-1 drugs. No one is talking about what happens after.

The Metabolic Off-Ramp After GLP-1: Why the Post-Appetite Era Needs to Take a Food Systems Look at Elderberry

By 2030, an estimated 35% of American households — a staggering proportion for a single class of medications — will have someone on a GLP-1 receptor agonist.

This is no longer a niche population or a specialty intervention. It reflects a broad shift in how metabolic disease is being managed at scale in the United States, where rates of obesity and metabolic dysfunction remain among the highest in the world.

GLP-1 receptor agonists (including semaglutide and tirzepatide — marketed as Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, and Zepbound, with next-generation triple agonists such as retatrutide in development) are reshaping how the country thinks about weight, appetite, and metabolic health.

The pharmaceutical conversation is settled. These drugs work — and they work well.

It is a structural intervention in the biology of a nation—a direct shift in how the United States addresses its metabolic problem. What happens next?

What happens after appetite suppression?

GLP-1 medications cost roughly $1,000 a month. They require weekly injections.

And the clinical data on discontinuation tells a consistent story: when patients stop, the weight returns. The weight loss (metabolic gains) do not hold without ongoing support — and for some patients, that reality is deeply frustrating.

This is not a distant or theoretical concern. This is a question millions of Americans are about to have to ask.

If these drugs change the trajectory of weight and metabolism, what supports that trajectory once the prescription ends — or for those who never start?

That is the opening for a new food conversation around metabolic recovery.

A 2024 clinical trial out of Washington State University suggests there may be more to the food side of that question than previously assumed.

The Initial Study

Researchers at WSU’s Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine, led by Patrick Solverson, assistant professor of Nutrition and Exercise Physiology, published the results of a randomized, placebo-controlled crossover trial in the journal Nutrients [1].

It is exciting research — both because the question is timely and because the team chose to study a food-based metabolic pathway with unusual precision.

The initial study was funded by a $200,000 grant from the United States Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture [2].

The trial tested elderberry juice against a flavor- and sugar-matched placebo in 18 overweight adults over one week.

The results were more than notable.

Postprandial blood glucose — blood glucose after eating — decreased by 24%.

Fat oxidation increased 27% both at rest and during exercise, meaning the body was burning more fat for fuel.

Insulin levels trended lower by 9%, though this result did not reach statistical significance in the small cohort — the direction is consistent with the glucose and fat oxidation outcomes and warrants attention in future, larger trials.

Beneficial gut bacteria increased while harmful species declined, including increases in Bifidobacterium, a bacterial population that expands as a result of anthocyanin fermentation in the gut and contributes to the generation of short-chain fatty acids involved in signaling L-cells to release GLP-1.

The microbiome shifted toward a profile associated with improved metabolic health — in seven days [1].

For a one-week food intervention, those findings are striking. They suggest that elderberry may have relevance not only to blood sugar regulation, but to the broader question of metabolic recovery in the GLP-1 era — particularly for people who have discontinued these medications and need their biology to hold its ground.

The Mechanism

What makes the WSU findings particularly relevant to the GLP-1 conversation is not just the outcomes but the biological pathway they appear to engage.

Elderberry is exceptionally dense in cyanidin-based anthocyanins — bioactive pigment compounds that function as prebiotic fuel in the gut.

When these anthocyanins reach the lower digestive tract, they are metabolized by gut microbes into bioactive compounds that support the growth of bacteria such as Bifidobacterium, which in turn drive the production of short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) [1].

Those SCFAs — butyrate, propionate, and acetate — reduce inflammation in adipose tissue (body fat), which is a metabolically active tissue that can become chronically inflamed and contribute to insulin resistance.

By reducing this inflammation, SCFAs help improve insulin sensitivity and metabolic function, and they directly stimulate L-cells in the intestinal lining to secrete GLP-1 [3]. The same hormone that semaglutide was engineered to mimic.

The distinction is important. This is not a supplement making a structure-function claim. This is a food-based mechanism, documented in peer-reviewed literature, that supports the body’s endogenous GLP-1 production through the gut microbiome.

The functional interaction between gut microbiota and host metabolism is well established in the literature [4].

This is part of why elderberry may matter as more than an immune-support ingredient: it may have a role in food-based metabolic recovery.

 Something a person can incorporate daily — during or after a GLP-1 prescription — to support the pathway the drug was engaging.

The Processing Gap

Not all elderberry products are created equal.

The WSU results used elderberry juice. The active compounds — the anthocyanins driving the metabolic effects — are heat-sensitive.

Research on the thermal degradation kinetics of elderberry polyphenolic compounds has shown that heating at temperatures ranging from 212 to 302°F (100 to 150°C) causes significant structural changes in anthocyanins, degrading both the bioactive compounds and their antioxidant activity [5].

At 203°F (95°C), only 50% of elderberry pigments remained after three hours of heating [6].

Elderberry in particular, with its softer peel structure, has been shown to be more prone to anthocyanin degradation by heat than other berry fruits [7].

Most commercial elderberry products sold on grocery store and drugstore shelves — syrups, gummies, capsules — undergo extended high-heat processing from large-scale factory production. This is standard for food safety, cost efficiency, and volume, but it degrades a significant portion of the elderberry anthocyanins responsible for the prebiotic and metabolic recovery observed in the trial.

The Off-Ramp Opportunity

WSU is continuing this line of research. With an additional $600,000 in NIFA funding, Solverson’s team is now investigating whether elderberry can help patients maintain weight loss and metabolic stability after discontinuing GLP-1 medications [2].

These are the clinical results — and the follow-on research questions — that matter.

Three consumer segments are emerging in the GLP-1 era, all underserved:

Patients transitioning off GLP-1 drugs who need metabolic recovery to sustain their results.

Consumers who prefer a food-based approach and do not intend to start pharmaceutical intervention.

A broader population seeking daily metabolic recovery through diet rather than supplementation.

Elderberry, with a documented mechanism running through the gut microbiome to endogenous GLP-1 production, is the candidate worthy of serious attention.

Where Berberine Fits — and Where It Does Not

Berberine has earned its position in the metabolic health conversation. It is an isoquinoline alkaloid derived from plants including goldenseal (Hydrastis canadensis) and Oregon grape.

Its primary mechanism of action is activation of adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase (AMPK), a key regulator of cellular energy metabolism.

In animal models of insulin resistance, berberine has been shown to reduce body weight, improve glucose tolerance, lower plasma triglycerides, and improve insulin action [8]. Its effects on blood glucose are real.

However, berberine is a concentrated plant extract delivered in capsule form. The efficacious dose is not achievable through dietary intake, and its oral bioavailability is less than 1% [9].

It does not function as a prebiotic. It does not stimulate GLP-1 through the SCFA pathway. It operates outside the food system.

The framing of berberine as “nature’s Ozempic” was effective marketing, but it may have narrowed the conversation prematurely.

The more productive question is not which botanical extract mimics a pharmaceutical. It is which whole food or minimally processed ingredient supports the biological pathway the pharmaceutical was designed to target — through the gut, through the microbiome, through something a person can drink.

The Larger Picture

Elderberry is a great part of the answer. A USDA-funded clinical trial with statistically significant metabolic outcomes, a documented GLP-1 mechanism, and an active follow-on study on post-drug maintenance suggests it deserves a place in the conversation.

The research is there. The mechanism is specific. The consumer need is growing by the month.

For the millions of Americans who will step off a GLP-1 drug and need somewhere to land, elderberry may be the metabolic recovery off-ramp they have been waiting for.

Bevin Brooks 

References

[1] Solverson, P. et al. (2024). A One-Week Elderberry Juice Intervention Augments the Fecal Microbiota and Suggests Improvement in Glucose Tolerance and Fat Oxidation in a Randomized Controlled Trial. Nutrients, 16(20), 3555. DOI: 10.3390/nu16203555

[2] WSU Press Release (January 2025). Elderberry Juice Shows Benefits for Weight Management, Metabolic Health. Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine. https://news.wsu.edu/press-release/2025/01/08/elderberry-juice-shows-benefits-for-weight-management-metabolic-health/

[3] Tolhurst, G. et al. (2012). Short-Chain Fatty Acids Stimulate Glucagon-Like Peptide-1 Secretion via the G-Protein-Coupled Receptor FFAR2. Diabetes, 61(2), 364–371. DOI: 10.2337/db11-1019

[4] Tremaroli, V. & Bäckhed, F. (2012). Functional interactions between the gut microbiota and host metabolism. Nature, 489, 242–249. DOI: 10.1038/nature11552

[5] Oancea, A.M. et al. (2018). The kinetics of thermal degradation of polyphenolic compounds from elderberry (Sambucus nigra L.) extract. Journal of Food Science and Technology, 55(2), 1–11. DOI: 10.1177/1082013218756139

[6] Sadilova, E. et al. (2007). Thermal degradation of anthocyanins and its impact on color and in vitro antioxidant capacity. Molecular Nutrition & Food Research, 51(12), 1461–1471. DOI: 10.1002/mnfr.200700179

[7] Fernandes, A. et al. (2021). Anthocyanin content in raspberry and elderberry: The impact of cooking and recipe composition. Journal of Food Composition and Analysis, 96, 103709. DOI: 10.1016/j.jfca.2020.103709

[8] Lee, Y.S. et al. (2006). Berberine, a Natural Plant Product, Activates AMP-Activated Protein Kinase With Beneficial Metabolic Effects in Diabetic and Insulin-Resistant States. Diabetes, 55(8), 2256–2264. DOI: 10.2337/db06-0006

[9] Wang, D.S. et al. (2022). Referenced in: Natural products targeting AMPK signaling pathway therapy, diabetes mellitus and its complications. Frontiers in Pharmacology, 16, 1534634. DOI: 10.3389/fphar.2025.1534634

Facebook
X
LinkedIn

Past Business Weekly's:

BUSINESS SECRETS WEEKLY

Lionberry 's Weekly Delusion and Re-illusion Update.

Lionberry’s Weekly Delusion and Re-Illusion Update

THE BOTTOM LINE — FOR THOSE WHO DON’T READ THE WHOLE THING:

You did not gain this weight on purpose. And you are not lazy. Your biology is working against you and the pharmaceutical industry figured that out before your doctor did.

Maybe you are on Ozempic. Maybe you are on Wegovy or Rybelsus — same drug, semaglutide, different name on the box. Maybe you switched to tirzepatide — Mounjaro for diabetes, Zepbound for weight loss — because it works better and your doctor said so and they are right, it does. Maybe you are watching retatrutide come through clinical trials right now, the triple agonist hitting GLP-1, GIP, and glucagon all at once, and you are waiting for it because nothing has been enough yet.

Or maybe you went off one of these drugs and the weight came back and you are furious. Or you never wanted a needle in the first place. Or you are watching the bill every month and doing math you do not like.

Or you are just tired. Tired of the afternoon crash. The brain fog. The blood sugar swings. The feeling that your body is running against you no matter what you do.

You are not alone. And you are not out of options.

There is a berry that has been growing in the dirt of the American Midwest for centuries. Farmers knew it. Grandmothers knew it. Scientists are now catching up. Washington State University published a clinical trial showing that elderberry juice — real juice, not a capsule, not a powder, not a gummy — reduced blood glucose by 24%, dropped insulin levels by 9%, and increased fat oxidation by 27%. In one week.

The mechanism supports your body’s own GLP-1 response — the same hormone every drug on that list was designed to mimic. Not because someone engineered elderberry to do that. Because that is what the plant does.

The prebiotic power of elderberry is not new information. It has been known — in farming communities, in food science, in microbiome research — for years. Then the peer-reviewed, statistically significant, USDA-funded clinical trial came out of Washington State University and made it official. The internet, in its infinite wisdom, kept scrolling past a peer-reviewed USDA-funded clinical trial to watch someone unbox supplements on TikTok.

What the category still does not have is a functional beverage actually built around this science — fresh-pressed, farm-grown, anthocyanins intact. Not a supplement. A drink.

The research never went away. The conversation is just finally catching up.

Berberine is getting the “nature’s Ozempic” headline. Berberine is in a capsule. Elderberry is a fresh-pressed fruit with intact anthocyanins — grown in the dirt of the American Midwest — and nobody is talking about it.

That last part matters. A lot. We’ll get there.

The GLP-1 Conversation Got Hijacked. Twice.

First, pharmaceuticals hijacked it. Semaglutide showed up, the world lost its mind, and suddenly every conversation about metabolic health ran through a needle.

Then berberine hijacked it. “Nature’s Ozempic,” they called it. Fair enough — berberine has real research behind it and genuine metabolic effects. But berberine comes in a capsule. It is an extracted, concentrated supplement. It is not food. It is not a drink. It is not something you pour into your day.

Elderberry has not been sitting quietly. The science has been building for years. The mainstream conversation just has not caught up yet.

That is starting to change.

1. WHAT THE STUDY ACTUALLY FOUND

In January 2025, researchers at Washington State University’s Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine published the results of a randomized, placebo-controlled crossover trial in the journal Nutrients. Lead researcher Patrick Solverson, assistant professor of Nutrition and Exercise Physiology at WSU, designed the trial specifically to test 100% elderberry juice against a flavor and sugar-matched placebo — meaning participants couldn’t tell which one they were drinking, and the sugar content was controlled so the results couldn’t be explained away by sweetness alone.

Eighteen overweight adults. One week of elderberry juice. Here is what happened:

Blood glucose dropped 24%. After a high-carbohydrate meal challenge, participants who had been drinking elderberry juice processed sugar significantly better than when they drank the placebo. Not a little better. 24% better.

Insulin levels dropped 9%. Lower insulin means the body is managing glucose more efficiently. Insulin reduction precedes fat loss. This is not a trivial number.

Fat oxidation increased 27%. Participants burned more fat — both at rest and during exercise — when consuming elderberry juice. The body shifted toward burning fat as a fuel source instead of storing it.

Gut bacteria changed meaningfully. Beneficial bacterial species increased. Harmful ones decreased. The microbiome shifted toward a profile associated with better metabolic health in one week.

Solverson’s own words: “Elderberry is an underappreciated berry, commercially and nutritionally. We’re now starting to recognize its value for human health, and the results are very exciting.”

That is a researcher who has spent years on this data saying out loud that elderberry has been underestimated.

He is correct.

2. THE MECHANISM — WHY THIS IS NOT A COINCIDENCE

This is the part the headlines skip. They print the numbers and move on. The numbers are impressive, but the mechanism is the story.

Here is what is actually happening inside your body when you drink elderberry juice with intact anthocyanins:

Elderberry is extraordinarily dense in a specific class of compounds called cyanidin-based anthocyanins. These are the deep purple pigments that give the berry its color. They are bioactive. They are not decoration.

When those anthocyanins reach your gut, they become prebiotic fuel. They feed specific strains of beneficial bacteria — including Bifidobacterium and Akkermansia — that produce short-chain fatty acids as a byproduct of fermentation.

Those short-chain fatty acids — butyrate, propionate, acetate — do several things. They reduce inflammation in fat tissue. They improve insulin sensitivity. And critically: they directly stimulate L-cells in the lining of your gut to secrete GLP-1.

GLP-1. Glucagon-like peptide-1. The hormone semaglutide was engineered to mimic.

Your gut makes it naturally. Elderberry anthocyanins tell it to make more.

This is not a supplement claim. This is documented biochemistry published in a peer-reviewed journal funded by the United States Department of Agriculture.

The plant supports your body’s natural GLP-1 response. From the inside out. Through the microbiome. Through food.

3. THE PROCESSING PROBLEM NOBODY TALKS ABOUT

Here is where most elderberry products fail — and why the science in this study does not automatically apply to everything with “elderberry” on the label.

The anthocyanins are the active compounds. They are what drives the GLP-1 mechanism. They are what produced the 24% blood glucose reduction in the WSU trial.

Anthocyanins are heat-sensitive.

Most elderberry products on the market — syrups, gummies, capsules, powders — are processed at high heat for extended periods. It is cheaper. It is faster. It kills pathogens. It also destroys a significant portion of the anthocyanins in the process. You are left with a product that tastes like elderberry, looks like elderberry, and has almost none of the bioactive compounds that make elderberry worth anything metabolically.

The elderberry category has an overcooked problem. The plant gets blamed for the processing failure. People try elderberry syrup, feel nothing metabolic, and write off the whole category.

The fix is not complicated. Fresh-pressed elderberry with pH dropped immediately using tart cherry — not heat, not extended cooking — and processed at 164°F for 45 seconds. Enough to be safe. Not enough to torch the anthocyanins. That is the standard any elderberry product making metabolic claims should be held to.

What was in the WSU study was juice. Not a powder. Not a gummy. Not a capsule. Not a syrup. Fresh-pressed juice with the compounds intact — because that is the only form that produced these results.

4. THE GLP-1 OFF-RAMP — METABOLIC SUPPORT IN THE POST-APPETITE ERA

WSU is not done with this research.

With additional funding from the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture, the research team is now exploring a specific follow-on question: can elderberry help people maintain weight loss and metabolic stability after discontinuing GLP-1 medications?

This is the question millions of people are about to need answered.

GLP-1 drugs work. They also cost $1,000 a month, require a weekly injection, and when people stop taking them — the weight comes back. The metabolic reset doesn’t hold without support. The gut microbiome that was doing work under the drug needs something to keep feeding it.

Elderberry’s anthocyanins feed the bacteria that produce the SCFAs that trigger endogenous GLP-1 production. That is a natural, food-based mechanism for supporting the same pathway the drug was doing pharmacologically.

This is the white space in the GLP-1 conversation right now. Three audiences, all underserved: people coming off GLP-1 medications who need metabolic support to maintain their results. People who do not want to start them and are looking for a food-based path. And people who simply want daily metabolic support — something that feeds the biology instead of overriding it.

That is the post-appetite economy. And food brands that understand it are going to matter.

5. WHY BERBERINE IS NOT THE ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION

Berberine deserves its moment. It has real research. It works through a different mechanism — AMPK activation — and has genuine effects on blood sugar and metabolism.

But berberine is not food. It is a concentrated plant extract in a capsule because the dose required for efficacy is not achievable through diet. It does not feed your gut microbiome. It does not stimulate GLP-1 through the SCFA pathway. It works around the food system, not through it.

The “nature’s Ozempic” framing was always the wrong lens. The question is not which plant mimics a drug. The question is which food supports the biology the drug was designed to target.

Elderberry’s GLP-1 effect is mechanistically specific. It runs through the microbiome. It is amplified by the prebiotic fiber in the berry. It works the way food is supposed to work — by feeding the systems your body already has.

That is a different category. That is a better story. And it has been sitting in a peer-reviewed journal for over a year waiting for someone to tell it.

THE BOTTOM LINE — ONE MORE TIME

Elderberry has a randomized controlled trial showing 24% blood glucose reduction, 9% insulin drop, and 27% fat oxidation increase in one week. The mechanism supports the body’s natural GLP-1 response via gut microbiome stimulation. The research is funded by the USDA. The lead researcher at WSU is now studying whether elderberry can support people coming off GLP-1 medications.

The post-appetite economy is here. By 2030, 35% of American households will have someone on a GLP-1 drug. What happens alongside those drugs — and after them — is the conversation the food industry has not had yet.

Elderberry just handed it a place to start.

RESEARCH CITATIONS

Because we didn’t make this up.

[1] Solverson et al. (2024). A One-Week Elderberry Juice Intervention Augments the Fecal Microbiota and Suggests Improvement in Glucose Tolerance and Fat Oxidation in a Randomized Controlled Trial. Nutrients, Vol. 16, No. 20, Article 3555. DOI: 10.3390/nu16203555. https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/16/20/3555

[2] WSU Press Release (January 2025). Elderberry Juice Shows Benefits for Weight Management, Metabolic Health. Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine. https://medicine.wsu.edu/news/2025/01/09/elderberry-juice-benefits/

[3] Tremaroli V, Bäckhed F. (2012). Functional interactions between the gut microbiota and host metabolism. Nature, 489, 242–249. DOI: 10.1038/nature11552

[4] Tolhurst G et al. (2012). Short-Chain Fatty Acids Stimulate Glucagon-Like Peptide-1 Secretion via the G-Protein–Coupled Receptor FFAR2. Diabetes, 61(2), 364–371. DOI: 10.2337/db11-1019

LionBerry Regenerative

Facebook & Instagram: @lionberry

Business Secrets Weekly drops every Sunday at www.lionberry.us