Journal of Obesity & Weight Loss Therapy
Open Access

Abstract

The obesity incidence has increased at an alarming rate in recent years, becoming a worldwide health problem. Due to the serious adverse effects of available anti-obesity drugs and some success of identifying natural products for overcoming obesity, more researches have been focused on the identification of natural products with less unpleasant adverse effects. Orthosiphon stamineus Benth. or java tea, is traditionally used to treat various disorders. Therefore, this study investigated the anti-obesity and lipid lowering activity of O. stamineus (200 and 400 mg/kg) on high-fat diet (HFD) induced obese mice. The oral administration of O. stamineus, for 8 weeks, resulted in a significant decrease in body weight gain in mice fed a high-fat diet. Subsequently, the food intake between the treatment and the HFD groups were similar which suggested that O. stamineus did not suppress appetite. Moreover, administration of O. stamineus significantly reduced the serum triglycerides, total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and liver oxidative stress levels compared to the HFD control group. Besides, the O. stamineus extract treatment elicited a significant reduction of serum glucose, insulin, leptin and adiponectin levels compared to that of the HFD control. The present study thus concludes that O. stamineus can possess hypolipidemic and anti-obesity activity that protects the body against adverse effects of high fat diet-induced obesity, possibly through suppression of body weight gain, lipid lowering action, improvement in insulin and leptin sensitivity.

Biography

Email: a_seyyedan@yahoo.com