Abstract
Obesity, a complex interplay between environmental and genetic factors and is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. Usage of herbs for the management of obesity in the recent times is attracting attention. A web and man-ual based literature survey was conducted to assess the amount of information available on the herbal products for weight management. Traditional literature, PubMed, Scopus, Google scholar databases were screened up to February 2012. The search words were “obesity”, “herbal medicine/products/extracts”, “medicinal plants”, “traditional medicine”, Obesity in adults is characterized when the Body Mass Index (BMI) is greater than or equal to 30. It is estimated that 1.7 billion people in the world are overweight or obese, and more than one third of U.S. adults (35.7%) are obese. There are a variety of factors that play a role in obesity, such as behavior, environment, and genetic factors. Usual countermeasures include adequate physical activity, avoidance of calorie-dense foods, and use of certain drugs for promoting weight loss. Surgery is an extreme measure and anyone considering it must have failed consistently in losing weight through lifestyle changes and less invasive methods. The main drugs currently employed in obesity treatment present dangerous side effects, namely: elevation of blood pressure, insomnia, constipation, headaches, among others. For this reason, a wide variety of natural materials have been explored for their obesity treatment potential. Considering that natural anti-obesity products have different mechanisms, the recommended approach to research a more effective obesity treatment, reaching the associated synergistic effects, must involve the combination of natural products and/or products with multiple activities. This chapter describes several natural products with anti-obesity activity, and active components and mechanisms of action to combat obesity. Keywords: anti-obesity activity, metabolic syndrome, natural products, obesity
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