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 manual 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", "Ayurvedic medicine" without narrowing/limiting searching words or elements. Publications only with abstracts/full articles and books were reviewed in the search. Based on the available literature, for many of the herbal and weight loss products, there is little published information and there have been no clinical trials or the level of evidence is limited. Our literature survey also indicated that these herbal products fall under an acceptable level of evidence or with no scientific background at all, or they have a scientific rational but not to an acceptance level. Attempts were made in the review to define the features of possible herbal weight loss product. An ideal herbal anti obesity product should reduce the weight by 10% over placebo of treatment by showing an evidence of improvement of bio markers like blood pressure, lipids and glycemia without any side effects.
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