The Best Citrus Bergamot Supplement

More than 91 million U.S. adults — over one-third of the adult population — have elevated cholesterol, and about one in four has high LDL, the “bad” cholesterol that can build up in arteries and increase the risk of heart attack and stroke.1 2

If you're among them, you've probably heard the usual advice: improve your diet, exercise more, and, when necessary, consider cholesterol-lowering medication. But there's another option that's attracted growing research interest: citrus bergamot, the fragrant citrus fruit best known for giving Earl Grey tea its distinctive flavor.

Citrus bergamot supplements have become increasingly popular for cholesterol support, and unlike many supplements making similar claims, bergamot has multiple human studies behind it.14 But products vary considerably in their extracts, doses, and quality.

In this guide, we'll explain what the research tells us about citrus bergamot and compare the best supplements to help you find the right option for your needs.

If you’re short on time, here’s a quick look at our top picks:

Over the past two decades, Innerbody Research has helped tens of millions of readers make more informed decisions about staying healthy and living healthier lifestyles.

At Innerbody, we thoroughly evaluate every product and service we review, including the citrus bergamot supplements in this guide. Our team reviewed dozens of scientific studies and articles examining citrus bergamot and its potential effects on cholesterol, triglycerides, metabolic health, and other areas.

In addition to this research, we investigated the top citrus bergamot supplements on the market, determining which offered the best balance of quality, safety, effectiveness, and value. We also compared important differences among products, including extract type, polyphenol standardization, dose, third-party testing, and transparency in labeling.

As with all health-related content on our site, this guide was thoroughly vetted by one or more members of our Medical Review Board for accuracy and will continue to be updated as new research and products emerge.

We assessed each citrus bergamot supplement using four factors that we think matter most when choosing this type of product:

• Effectiveness
• Safety
• Cost
• Convenience

Looking at the products through the same four lenses allowed us to compare them more consistently and identify where each one stood out.

In the sections below, we break down these criteria and explain which supplements earned an advantage in each category. All of our recommendations performed well across the board; an “advantage” simply means one product offered something noteworthy that gave it an edge in that particular area.

Effectiveness

Advantage: NOW Cholesterol Pro

Since most people interested in citrus bergamot are looking for help managing cholesterol, we gave the effectiveness advantage to the product with the strongest cholesterol-focused formula: NOW Cholesterol Pro.

Each two-tablet serving contains:

• 500mg of Bergamonte: A standardized citrus bergamot extract containing at least 30% flavonoids, a major group of the plant compounds known as polyphenols.
• 800mg of pine-derived plant sterols: Naturally occurring compounds that resemble cholesterol and help reduce how much your intestines absorb.

NOW recommends taking two servings daily for the first 30 days, which provides 1,000mg of Bergamonte and 1,600mg of plant sterols — amounts that line up particularly well with the clinical research. After that, the company recommends dropping to one serving daily.

The bergamot dose is well supported. One randomized, double-blind trial involving 237 adults tested 500mg and 1,000mg daily of a bergamot polyphenolic fraction (BPF), essentially a concentrated extract rich in these beneficial plant compounds. Both doses significantly reduced LDL and total cholesterol after 30 days.4 Other human research using 1,000mg daily has also reported reductions in LDL, total cholesterol, and triglycerides.5

Plant sterols have an even larger body of evidence behind them. A meta-analysis of 124 studies found that doses averaging around 1.7g daily lowered LDL by about 7.6%.6 Two servings of Cholesterol Pro get you very close to that amount.

Double Wood comes close from an effectiveness standpoint and remains our best overall pick. Its single-ingredient formula provides 500mg of Bergamonte per capsule, making it easier to adjust your bergamot intake without increasing another ingredient at the same time. That flexibility may also appeal if you're interested in bergamot's potential effects beyond cholesterol, including blood sugar and insulin sensitivity, although the evidence in these areas is less established.7

For cholesterol support specifically, however, NOW's combination of Bergamonte and well-studied plant sterols gives it the effectiveness advantage.

Safety

Advantage: Double Wood Citrus Bergamot Extract

Citrus bergamot has a pretty good safety track record in human research. Studies have tested doses ranging from 500mg to 1,500mg daily, generally with few reported side effects.8 When side effects do occur, they appear to be relatively mild; heartburn, for example, has been reported in some participants.4

With no major safety concerns separating our three picks, this category ultimately came down to how the supplements are made and tested — and how transparent each company is about the results.

Double Wood earns the advantage because every batch undergoes independent testing by an ISO/IEC 17025-accredited laboratory. The company tests each batch for identity and potency as well as heavy metals and microbial contaminants. Better yet, Double Wood posts its certificates of analysis (COAs) directly on the product page, allowing you to review the results yourself.

The other companies also have strong quality controls:

• NOW Foods: The company operates extensive in-house analytical and microbiological laboratories with ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation. It also uses outside laboratories for independent verification and specialized testing.
• Nutricost: Its citrus bergamot is manufactured in an NSF-certified, GMP-compliant facility, and each batch undergoes independent third-party testing for purity and potency.

All three give us good reasons to feel confident about product quality. But Double Wood's straightforward single-ingredient formula, accredited third-party testing, and publicly available COAs provide an extra level of transparency that earns it our safety advantage.

Cost

Advantage: Nutricost Citrus Bergamot

Nutricost is the clear winner on cost. At $16.97 for 120 capsules, it provides 1,200mg of citrus bergamot for about $0.28 per serving — considerably less than our other picks.

Here's how the three compare:

There is an important tradeoff behind Nutricost's lower price. Unlike Double Wood and NOW, it doesn't use Bergamonte or disclose a standardized amount of polyphenols or flavonoids. That makes it harder to know how closely its extract resembles the formulations used in clinical research.

NOW's higher price also deserves some context. You're not paying for citrus bergamot alone; each serving includes 800mg of plant sterols, which have their own evidence for lowering LDL. So while NOW is considerably more expensive, you're getting a more comprehensive cholesterol-support formula.

Still, if keeping costs low is your priority, Nutricost provides by far the least expensive serving among our recommendations.

Convenience

Advantage: Double Wood Citrus Bergamot Extract

Double Wood takes this category largely because it makes adjusting your citrus bergamot dose unusually simple. Each capsule provides 500mg of Bergamonte, so you can easily take 500mg, 1,000mg, or 1,500mg depending on the amount that works best for you. That's especially useful given that human studies have tested bergamot across this range.8

The other products aren't quite as flexible. NOW requires two tablets to provide 500mg of Bergamonte, while Nutricost's standard 1,200mg serving requires two capsules. Double Wood lets you reach several commonly studied bergamot doses without taking as many pills or changing products.

There are a few other conveniences we appreciate. Double Wood offers one-, two-, and three-bottle purchases, and its subscription program lets you adjust delivery frequency, pause shipments, or cancel at any time. Its 30-day money-back guarantee is also relatively hassle-free: if you aren't satisfied with your first bottle, you can request a refund without having to return the opened bottle. If you bought a multipack, you can keep the first bottle and return the remaining unopened bottles for a refund, although you'll have to cover return shipping.

None of these features is a game-changer on its own. Taken together, though, Double Wood makes it particularly easy to tailor your citrus bergamot routine, try it with relatively little risk, and keep it going if it works for you.

Here’s a quick look at how our top picks compare on dosage, testing, cost, and guarantees.

Citrus bergamot (Citrus bergamia) is a small, yellow-green citrus fruit that looks a bit like a cross between a lemon and an orange. In fact, genetic research suggests bergamot originated as a hybrid of sour orange and lemon.9 It's grown primarily along the coast of Calabria in southern Italy, where the climate is particularly well-suited to the fruit.

You may already be familiar with bergamot without realizing it. Oil extracted from the peel gives Earl Grey tea its distinctive citrusy aroma and is also widely used in perfumes and cosmetics.10 But the citrus bergamot supplements in this guide are different from bergamot essential oil. They're typically made from concentrated extracts of the fruit or juice and contain naturally occurring plant compounds called polyphenols.11

Bergamot is particularly rich in flavonoids, a type of polyphenol.12 Its distinctive flavonoid profile includes compounds such as:

• Naringin
• Neohesperidin
• Neoeriocitrin
• Brutieridin
• Melitidin

Brutieridin and melitidin are particularly interesting because they're found in much higher concentrations in bergamot than in oranges and lemons.4 Together with the fruit's other flavonoids, they give bergamot a somewhat unusual chemical profile compared with other citrus fruits.

This chemistry matters when you're shopping for a supplement. Many citrus bergamot products concentrate these polyphenols into an extract, and some standardize their formulas to provide a consistent amount of flavonoids from one batch to the next.

Once absorbed, bergamot's polyphenols appear to influence several processes involved in how your body handles cholesterol, fats, and blood sugar. Researchers are still working out exactly how these effects occur, and much of what we know about the underlying mechanisms comes from cell and animal studies rather than human research.8 13

One of the most interesting targets is HMG-CoA reductase, an enzyme your liver uses to make cholesterol. You may see claims that bergamot simply blocks this enzyme in the same way statin medications do, but the evidence isn't that straightforward. In a study using human-derived liver and intestinal cell lines, bergamot extract didn't directly inhibit HMG-CoA reductase. Instead, some bergamot flavonoids appeared to reduce how much of the enzyme the cells produced, potentially dialing down cholesterol production through a different route.13

Bergamot may also affect how cholesterol is absorbed, processed, and removed from the body. Its polyphenols appear to influence enzymes involved in cholesterol absorption and may activate AMPK, a kind of cellular “energy sensor” that helps regulate how the body handles fats and glucose.8 13 These mechanisms are still being worked out, but human studies give us a better idea of where bergamot's effects might ultimately show up.

Overall, the most convincing human evidence still centers on LDL, total cholesterol, and triglycerides. Research into blood sugar, inflammation, and body composition suggests bergamot could have broader metabolic effects, but those potential benefits are less established.

There’s no official recommended daily dose for citrus bergamot, but the research gives us a reasonable range to work with. For cholesterol support, we recommend 500–1,000mg daily of a standardized citrus bergamot extract. Human studies have repeatedly tested doses in this range, with improvements reported in LDL, total cholesterol, triglycerides, and other lipid measures.5 14

If you're new to citrus bergamot, 500mg daily is a sensible place to start. That dose has produced positive results in clinical research, while 1,000mg daily is one of the better-studied higher doses.14 In one trial, for example, participants taking 1,000mg of bergamot polyphenolic fraction (BPF) daily for 30 days experienced significant reductions in LDL, total cholesterol, and triglycerides.5

But milligrams don't tell the whole story. Different bergamot extracts can contain different concentrations of polyphenols, which is why we prefer standardized extracts that provide a consistent amount of compounds such as flavonoids. For example, a 500mg extract standardized to 30% flavonoids provides at least 150mg of flavonoids. And in one four-month trial, a standardized bergamot preparation providing 150mg of flavonoids daily significantly reduced LDL and total cholesterol compared with placebo.3

In other words, more bergamot isn't necessarily better. For most people, we'd start at the lower end of the 500–1,000mg range and consider the extract's standardization alongside the number of milligrams on the label.

For most healthy adults, citrus bergamot appears to be well-tolerated at commonly studied doses. Human research has tested roughly 500–1,500mg daily, generally without serious adverse effects, although the overall safety database is still relatively small.11 18

When side effects occur, they tend to be mild. In one study of 237 adults, 17 participants taking 500mg or 1,000mg of BPF experienced moderate heartburn, but none stopped treatment because of it.4 A more recent four-month randomized controlled trial also reported good tolerability, with no concerning changes in liver or kidney function or other safety measures.3

The bigger unknown is long-term use. Most clinical studies have lasted weeks or a few months, so we don't have the same long-term safety data for citrus bergamot that we have for established cholesterol medications.

Citrus bergamot isn't a one-size-fits-all supplement. Based on the available human research, some people have a clearer reason to consider it than others.

Who are they not for?

Citrus bergamot isn't appropriate for everyone, and some of its potential benefits are better supported than others. You may want to skip it — or talk with your healthcare provider first — if any of the following apply.

Best overall

Double Wood earns our best overall designation because it does particularly well across all four of our evaluation criteria without adding much unnecessary complexity. Each capsule contains 500mg of citrus bergamot extract, giving you an easy way to take 500mg or 1,000mg daily — the range we recommend for most people based on the available human research.

That flexibility is more useful than it might initially sound. Human bergamot studies have frequently used 500mg and 1,000mg daily, with some research extending to higher doses.14 So if you want to start at the lower end of the range we recommend, one capsule gets you there. Two capsules provide the 1,000mg amount used in several cholesterol studies without requiring the four tablets you'd need to get the same amount of bergamot from NOW Cholesterol Pro.

The extract Double Wood uses is Bergamonte, a branded, standardized form of citrus bergamot containing several of the compounds we've discussed, including neoeriocitrin, naringin, neohesperidin, brutieridin, and melitidin. Standardization helps ensure a more consistent composition from one batch to the next, which is one reason we prefer well-characterized extracts like Bergamonte over generic bergamot extracts.

Double Wood backs that ingredient quality with unusually transparent testing. Every batch is third-party tested for identity, potency, heavy metals, and microbial contamination, and the company posts its latest test results and COA directly on the product page. The current lot, for example, was screened for arsenic, cadmium, lead, mercury, E. coli, Salmonella, S. aureus, yeast, mold, and overall microbial counts. That's a level of transparency we don't get from every citrus bergamot supplement we considered.

Pricing, subscriptions, and shipping

Double Wood isn't as inexpensive as Nutricost, but its subscription and bulk savings can bring the price down considerably. A single bottle costs $24.95, while subscribing knocks 20% off, bringing it to $19.96.

You can save more by purchasing two or three bottles at once, and Double Wood lets you combine those bulk savings with its subscription discount:

Double Wood also gives you plenty of flexibility in how often you receive your order, with deliveries available every 30, 60, 90, or 180 days. If you take 1,000mg daily, one bottle lasts 30 days, while a 500mg daily dose stretches it to 60 days. That makes it relatively easy to match your subscription schedule to your preferred dose.

Bulk orders give you more possibilities. At 1,000mg daily, a two-pack lasts 60 days, and a three-pack lasts 90 days, so those quantities pair naturally with Double Wood's 60- and 90-day delivery options. The 180-day interval makes the most sense if you're taking 500mg daily and ordering three bottles at a time.

There is one small catch: free U.S. shipping starts at $30. A single $24.95 bottle doesn't qualify, while either a two- or three-bottle purchase clears the threshold. That makes a bulk order particularly attractive if you already know you plan to take citrus bergamot consistently.

Refunds and guarantees

Double Wood's 30-day guarantee is relatively straightforward. If this is your first purchase of Citrus Bergamot and you decide it isn't right for you, you can request a refund for the first bottle without having to send that opened bottle back.

The policy also applies to multipacks. You can keep the first bottle and return the remaining unopened bottles for a refund, although you're responsible for return shipping. The guarantee applies only to your first purchase of a particular product, and processed subscription orders aren't automatically covered.

Thirty days gives you enough time to see how well you tolerate the supplement, but it may be a relatively short window for deciding how much it's affecting your cholesterol. Some bergamot trials have detected changes within 30 days, while others have followed participants for several months.14 Checking your lipid levels with your healthcare provider will give you a much better sense of whether the supplement is actually doing what you want it to do than relying on how you feel.

Best budget

Nutricost is our budget pick for a simple reason: it's considerably less expensive than our other recommendations without cutting corners on basic quality control. A $16.97 bottle contains 120 capsules, with two capsules providing 1,200mg of citrus bergamot extract. That works out to 60 servings at about $0.28 each — roughly one-third the cost of a 1,000mg serving from Double Wood.

The formula uses a 25:1 citrus bergamot extract, meaning the manufacturer concentrates the source material during processing rather than simply putting powdered bergamot fruit into a capsule. But that 25:1 ratio doesn't tell us how much of the finished extract consists of flavonoids or other polyphenols. Nutricost doesn't disclose a standardized flavonoid percentage, so we can't directly compare its polyphenol content with a standardized extract like Bergamonte.

That's the main compromise you're making for the lower price. Nutricost gives you more citrus bergamot extract on paper, but not necessarily more of the flavonoids and other polyphenols thought to contribute to bergamot's effects. As we discussed in our dosage section, a larger milligram number doesn't automatically make one bergamot supplement more potent or effective than another.

Nutricost isn't quite as flexible when it comes to dosing. Each capsule provides 600mg, putting one capsule comfortably within the 500–1,000mg daily range we recommend for most people. Taking two brings you to 1,200mg, which is still within the range used in human research but slightly higher than we think most people need. Double Wood's 500mg-per-capsule format gives you straightforward 500mg and 1,000mg options.

Nutricost also has solid quality controls in place. Each batch of Citrus Bergamot undergoes independent testing by ISO-accredited third-party laboratories. It's also manufactured in an NSF-certified, GMP-compliant facility. Unlike Double Wood, however, Nutricost doesn't currently post batch-specific COAs directly on the product page.

Pricing, subscriptions, and shipping

At $16.97 for 60 servings, Nutricost is easily the least expensive product in this guide. Its $0.28 cost per labeled serving is substantially below Double Wood's $0.83 and NOW Cholesterol Pro's $1.00.

The value gets even better if you take one 600mg capsule daily, a dose that falls comfortably within the 500–1,000mg range we recommend. At that dose, one bottle lasts 120 days and costs about $0.14 per day, or roughly $0.11 per day with a subscription.

Nutricost offers free continental U.S. shipping on orders over $59, so a single bottle doesn't qualify. That's a relatively high threshold compared with Double Wood's $30 minimum and takes some of the shine off Nutricost's low sticker price if you're only ordering one bottle.

Refunds and guarantees

Nutricost offers a 60-day money-back guarantee, which is the longest among our three citrus bergamot recommendations. If you're unhappy with the product, you can receive a refund of the purchase price minus shipping and handling.

The policy is also relatively accommodating if you've opened the product. Nutricost's current terms state that bottles or tubs after the first one need to remain in new condition to qualify for a refund or exchange. Unless you purchased its optional return protection at checkout, you're responsible for return shipping.

Best cholesterol-support formula

NOW Cholesterol Pro takes a different approach from our other recommendations. Each two-tablet serving provides:

• 500mg of citrus bergamot extract
• 800mg of pine-derived phytosterols

Together, they make Cholesterol Pro the most specifically cholesterol-focused formula in this guide.

As with Double Wood, NOW uses the branded Bergamonte extract, standardized to contain at least 30% flavonoids. What sets the formula apart is the phytosterols — plant compounds that resemble cholesterol and help reduce how much of it your intestines absorb. Because their structures are similar, phytosterols essentially compete with cholesterol for absorption, allowing more cholesterol to pass through your digestive system instead of entering your bloodstream.

Plant sterols have a substantial body of human evidence behind them. A meta-analysis of 124 studies found that doses averaging 1.7g daily lowered LDL by 7.6%.6 Two servings of Cholesterol Pro provide a similar 1.6g of phytosterols plus 1,000mg of Bergamonte, putting both ingredients at doses supported by human research.

That's why we gave NOW our effectiveness advantage: it combines two ingredients that can influence cholesterol in different ways, rather than simply providing a higher dose of bergamot.

The tradeoff is convenience and cost. Getting those research-aligned amounts requires four tablets per day, compared with two Double Wood capsules for 1,000mg of bergamot. And if you're interested in citrus bergamot for reasons beyond cholesterol, you may not need the added phytosterols.

Pricing, subscriptions, and shipping

NOW Cholesterol Pro costs $59.99 for 120 tablets when purchased directly from NOW. At the standard two-tablet serving, that provides 60 servings at about $1.00 each.

As discussed above, two servings daily provide the amounts of Bergamonte and phytosterols that align most closely with the research. At that intake, a bottle lasts 30 days and costs about $2 per day when purchased directly from NOW.

At the time of writing, however, iHerb offers Cholesterol Pro for considerably less: $34.92 for a one-time purchase or $33.17 with a subscription. At two servings daily, that works out to about $1.16 or $1.11 per day, respectively.

Refunds and guarantees

NOW accepts returns within 30 days for products purchased directly through its website, but supplements generally need to be new and unopened to qualify. That makes its policy less accommodating than either Double Wood's first-bottle guarantee or Nutricost's 60-day policy.

In practical terms, this isn't much of a trial period: once you open Cholesterol Pro and begin taking it, the standard return policy no longer gives you a way to try the formula and request a refund simply because you decide it isn't right for you.

Citrus bergamot isn't the only supplement with evidence for supporting healthy cholesterol levels. If lowering LDL is your primary goal, several alternatives have substantial human research behind them. Some can also complement citrus bergamot rather than necessarily replacing it.

Diet

If you're taking citrus bergamot to help manage cholesterol, diet is an important part of the picture. Supplements may provide some additional support, but what you eat every day can influence how much cholesterol your body absorbs, produces, and ultimately carries in your bloodstream.

The good news is that a cholesterol-friendly diet doesn't require eliminating all dietary fat or eating an especially restrictive menu. Instead, research generally points toward adding more soluble fiber and plant-based foods while replacing some saturated fats with unsaturated fats.24

Some particularly useful foods include:

• Oats and barley: Both contain beta-glucan, a soluble fiber that helps reduce cholesterol absorption and encourages your body to remove more cholesterol from circulation.
• Beans and lentils: These provide soluble fiber along with plant protein, making them a useful replacement for some higher-saturated-fat animal foods.
• Nuts and seeds: Nuts provide unsaturated fats, fiber, and other plant compounds, and clinical research supports modest LDL reductions with regular consumption.
• Soy foods: Tofu, tempeh, soy milk, and other soy foods provide plant protein that can modestly lower LDL, particularly when they replace foods higher in saturated fat.
• Fruits and vegetables: These add fiber and can help shift your overall diet toward more plant foods, although their individual effects on LDL vary considerably.
• Olive oil and other unsaturated fats: Replacing saturated fats like butter with unsaturated fats can help lower LDL. The important word here is replace — simply adding olive oil on top of an otherwise unchanged diet isn't quite the same thing.

There's also evidence that these changes can become more powerful when you combine them. The Portfolio diet was designed around several foods known to lower cholesterol, including viscous soluble fiber, nuts, plant protein, and plant sterols. In a systematic review and meta-analysis of controlled trials, following this dietary pattern lowered LDL by about 17% more than a low-saturated-fat cholesterol-lowering diet alone.25

That's an important comparison. Researchers weren't comparing the Portfolio diet with a typical diet high in saturated fat and highly processed foods; the control group was already following cholesterol-conscious dietary advice. Combining several evidence-backed cholesterol-lowering foods produced an additional benefit.