Tackling the menace of obesity using botanicals having anti-obesity properties Dwivedi Padmanabh*, Kumar Prasann Department of Plant Physiology, Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India *Email: pdwivedi25@rediffmail.com
Online published on 24 July, 2012. Abstract Plants serve as an exemplary source of drugs and many of the past and currently available drugs have been derived directly or indirectly from them. A healthy person's weight must be in proportion with his or her height, which means within the body mass index (BMI). It is already known that most common reasons for obesity can be sedentary lifestyle, high intake of calories and even scientific reasons (such as psychiatric, medical and genetic causes). A person finds it difficult to exercise or take up some sport, which gradually has negative influence on his weight making him obese. Another cause of obesity is genetics or heredity. It has been found out that the gene for obesity has been passed on from generation to generation. At present, because of dissatisfaction with high costs and potentially hazardous side-effects of chemically synthesized medicines, the potential of natural products for treating obesity is under exploration, and this may be an excellent alternative strategy for developing future effective and safe anti-obesity drugs. A diverse number of natural plants products having the higher diversity in their properties, including crude extracts and isolated active compounds from plants, can induce drastic body weight reduction and prevent diet-induced obesity. Therefore, they have been widely used in treating obesity. The technique of plant tissue culture helps in generating a large number of such medicinal plants having anti-obesity properties. Top Keywords Anti-obesity drug, Body mass index, Crude extract, In vitro culture, Medicinal plants, Obesity. Top |