The impact of Ephedra and green tea combination mesotherapy on localized fat: A randomized-controlled clinical trial

Methodological insights into intervention and outcomes in randomised controlled trials of herbal medicine for obesity: a scoping review

Background

With rising obesity rates worldwide, clinical trials focused on identifying effective treatments are increasing. While guidelines exist for pharmaceutical drugs targeting obesity, there are none for herbal medicine clinical trials for anti-obesity. Both industries refer to the same guidelines for clinical trials.

Objectives

This scoping review aimed to gather information from herbal medicine anti-obesity randomised controlled trials (RCTs), analyse the methodologies and assess their alignment with international guidelines.

Eligibility criteria

This review included RCTs of participants of all ages with obesity utilising herbal medicine with any comparators and focusing on various outcome measures.Sources of evidence: Only published journal articles were included.

Charting methods

Articles were extracted from MEDLINE, CENTRAL and EMBASE using predetermined keywords. Relevant data, such as the study characteristics, types of herbal interventions and controls, treatment durations, outcome measures and safety monitoring methods were recorded in a table format for comparative analysis.

Results

We included 99 RCTs that showed participant sample sizes ranging from 8 to 182, ages 18 to 80 years and body mass indexes (BMIs) between 25 and 49.9 kg/m2. Herbal interventions used single herbs (n = 57) and mixtures (n = 42), given for 14 days to 56 weeks. Studies implementing diet modifications include restricted calorie diets (n = 35), food-portion controlled diets (n = 7) and fixed calorie diets (n = 7). Of the 28 studies implementing exercise, most were of moderate intensity (n = 22). All studies collected BMI and weight as primary outcomes. Body fat composition was measured in over 50% of studies using a body analyser (n = 57). Waist, hip and abdominal circumferences were infrequently measured. Radiological tools used include dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (n = 16), computed tomography scans (n = 10) and ultrasound (n = 2). Safety monitoring methods were reported in most studies (n = 76).

Conclusion

In conclusion, almost 50% of the studies adhered to international pharmaceutical clinical trial guidelines, addressing dietary, lifestyle, physical activity and cardiovascular risk factors. Nonetheless, more herbal anti-obesity studies need to consider the assessment of weight maintenance.

A bibliometric analysis of research on herbal medicine for obesity over the past 20 years

BACKGROUND

The aim of this study was to analyze published papers on the use of herbal medicine in obesity research over the past 20 years using bibliometric methods and present an overview of global research trends.

METHODS

English articles on herbal medicine for obesity published from 2001 to 2020 were retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection database using the search terms "herbal" AND "obesity". Microsoft Office Excel was used to sort and analyze the statistical data. Bibliographic analysis and data visualization were performed using visualization of similarities viewer based on publication year, country of publication, journal, research area, author, affiliated institution, and keywords.

RESULTS

A total of 463 English articles were retrieved, and we observed a trend in which the number of publications on herbal medicine for obesity has gradually increased over the past 20 years. The most productive countries and research organizations in this field were Korea and Kyunghee University, respectively. Many papers have been published in research areas, such as pharmacology pharmacy and integrative complementary medicine, and the journals with the most published articles in this field were Journal of Ethnopharmacology and Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine. The main research keywords formed 3 clusters, and keywords with the most occurrences were "obesity," "adipose-tissue," and "insulin resistance."

CONCLUSION

This study presents an overview of the global research trend of herbal medicine for obesity from the bibliographic analysis. An increased understanding of the recently changing research topics provides a new perspective on future research directions. This study may help guide the research in the field of obesity in the future.