An extract from the thunder god vine, which has a long history of use in traditional Chinese medicine, reduces food intake and causes up to a 45% decrease in body weight in obese mice. The weight-loss compound, called Celastrol, produces its potent effects by enhancing the action of an appetite-suppressing hormone called leptin. The findings, published May 21 in Cell, are an early indicator that Celastrol could be developed into a drug for the treatment of obesity.
Editor’s note: take out your B.S. detectors on this study. The idea is obesity drugs. It seems like beautiful Chinese herbs are only acknowledged for what can be extracted from them. It’s not to say the drug is useless or harmful. But, in the end, they disparage using the whole herb and call it…dangerous! Please research and talk to your preferred healthcare practitioner. Correcting liver, leptin and weight should be a holistic approach. ~Heather Callaghan
“During the last two decades, there has been an enormous amount of effort to treat obesity by breaking down leptin resistance, but these efforts have failed,” says senior study author Umut Ozcan, an endocrinologist atBoston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. “The message from this study is that there is still hope for making leptin work, and there is still hope for treating obesity. If Celastrol works in humans as it does in mice, it could be a powerful way to treat obesity and improve the health of many patients suffering from obesity and associated complications, such as heart disease, fatty liver, and type 2 diabetes.”