Cosmos caudatus Kunth leaf, a plant used for salad in Malaysia, demonstrates anti-obesity effects on rats fed a high fat diet

Obesity is a major problem for many people across the world. It is an issue in both developed as well as developing countries, and it directly contributes to millions of deaths every single year. Now, a group of researchers have successfully looked into the potential of ethanolic extract from Cosmos caudatus Kunth leaf (EECCL) for use in anti-obesity treatment.

• Obesity is usually treated in various ways, and the use of herbal medicines is among the most common ones. This is due to the fact that it is natural, cost-efficient, and causes minimal side effects on patients.
• The researchers identified that there is potential in EECCL for anti-obesity treatment, so they focused on it as a way of treating subject participants. Specifically, they looked at the effects on groups of lab rats.
• They divided all of the lab rats into six different groups at random. The first group was for normal diet (ND) while the second group was for normal diet and 175 mg/kgBW of EECCL (ND + 175 mg/kgBW), and so on in that fashion.
• In order to evaluate the anti-obesity potential of their specified diets, the researchers analyzed perceived and recorded changes in body weight, visceral fat weight, and blood biochemicals like total cholesterol triglycerides, and even fecal fat content.
• The researchers found that the lab rats which received EECCL along with a high-fat diet (HFD) were able to show a significant reduction in body weight gain as opposed to rats that were given HFD only. By the end of the study, it is said that the body weight gain of the EECCL-treated lab rats showed that it was not that much different from the ND rats.

The researchers concluded that EECCL possesses certain anti-obesity properties, which leads to inhibition of intestinal lipid absorption as well as to the modulation of adipocytes markers. This is what causes the prevention of body weight increase in patients.

Journal Reference:

Rahman HA, Sahib NG, Saari N, Abas F, Ismail A, Mumtaz MW, Hamid AA. ANTI-OBESITY EFFECT OF ETHANOLIC EXTRACT FROM COSMOS CAUDATUS KUNTH LEAF IN LEAN RATS FED A HIGH FAT DIET. BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine. 22 February 2017;17(1). DOI: 10.1186/s12906-017-1640-4