Obesity Cure Discovered In Chinese Medicinal Vine 'Thunder God'

The magic pill to cure obesity despite several advances made in understanding the science behind it, remains elusive. Researchers who relooked what may be driving people to eat more, may finally have found an answer.

In a study published recently in the journal Cell, researchers report the use of a compound called Celastrol extracted from Thunder God Vine used in Chinese traditional medicine. The compound works by reducing resistance in the body to a naturally occurring hormone leptin. Leptin helps in lowering appetite. While its role was discovered decades ago, efforts to increase the leptin production have failed as the body is capable of mounting resistance to it.

"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," said the study's senior author Umut Ozcan, an endocrinologist at Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School.

Ozcan and his team, studied obese mice treated with Celastrol and noted that the compound lowered appetite by 80 percent. After a week of burning fat reserves, the mice lost 45 percent of their body weight.

He however cautioned humans from just trying it as the effects of the compound and the vine itself are yet to be studied.

"Celastrol is found in the roots of the thunder god vine in small amounts, but the plant's roots and flowers have many other compounds. As a result, it could be dangerous for humans to consume thunder god vine extracts to lose weight."