Bromelain
(Pineapple Extract)
Evidence: Reasonable
Possible Benefits: Reasonable
Safety: High
TABLE OF CONTENTS
What is bromelain?
Bromelain is a popular supplement extracted from pineapples. This compound can reduce inflammation, boost antioxidant defenses, improve cardiovascular health, and more. It is often taken with quercetin as it can greatly improve the absorption of this molecule. This article is about the main benefits of bromelain, its potential side effects, the best time to take it, and more.
Possible benefits
All of the potential benefits mentioned below are dose-dependent. As with other fruit extracts, there is a sweet-spot dose that allows you to get most of the benefits without causing meaningful side effects or tolerance buildup in the body. We will discuss the best dosing protocol later in this article.
Minor benefits
Possible side effects
The side effects below are dose-dependent. The risk for them increases (often linearly but sometimes exponentially) as you increase the dose. Some of the side effects only apply to very high doses.
Who should not take bromelain?
You should probably avoid bromelain if you:
Who will benefit the most?
You should consider taking the supplement diet if you:
How much bromelain should you take?
Because the supplement has adaptogenic properties, it acts as mild hormetic stressors on the body, which allows your body to adapt and become more resilient to certain kinds of stressors in the long term. A higher dose of this compound isn’t necessarily better because it may put too much stress on the system.
The sweet-spot dose typically ranges between 200 mg and 800 mg daily.
The higher end of this range usually provides slightly more benefits in the short term. If you plan to take this supplement regularly for a longer time (multiple months or years), the lower end is probably a better way to go.
While this supplement could theoretically cause acute toxicity, you’d need to take an extremely high amount that would be way beyond what even the most potent extracts contain.
Like most other plants, it is best to cycle bromelain and take about two days off weekly to reset your tolerance to the supplement. That will allow you to keep getting the benefits in the long term.
Best time to take bromelain
Bromelain is water-soluble, so you don’t need to take it with food to absorb it well.
Whether you take the supplement in the morning or the evening does not make much difference. Both options are fine so feel free to experiment.
Interactions
Where to buy bromelain supplements?
In most countries, Amazon is the best option for ordering bromelain and other fruit extracts and supplements. They offer some very affordable products backed by many positive reviews. Also, you can choose from a wide range of brands without having to search through other markets on the Internet.
Some brands display the dosage per serving instead of per pill or capsule. Therefore, you may accidentally buy something less potent than you intended. Do not fall for this marketing trick.
FAQ
References
Most of the information in this guide is based on scientific research that can be found and verified in the PubMed medical library. We highly encourage you to use the library to verify anything you read in this article. We excluded from consideration studies that are either confounded or have a high conflict of interest.
We hope this guide has helped you determine if you should add bromelain to your supplement stack and how to do it right.
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