Hibiscus and lemon verbena polyphenols modulate appetite-related biomarkers in overweight subjects: a randomized controlled trial

The worldwide prevalence of obesity has nearly tripled between 1975 and 2016, reaching more than 1.9 billion adults, of which over 650 million were obese.

Obesity has been classified according to the World Health Organization (WHO) as a pandemic associated with several metabolic disorders, including increased adipose tissue mass, endothelial dysfunction, dyslipidemia, hypertension, atherosclerosis and insulin resistance. Altogether, they constitute a complex pathology known as metabolic syndrome. There seem to be three interconnected reasons for obesity to onset: hyperphagy, caloric imbalance (excess food intake with low energy expenditure) and activation of cell mechanisms to favor excess energy storage as fat. 

Obesity is generally treated with a combination of approaches, including adopting a dietary intervention focused on calorie restriction, exercise and psychological support in order to achieve the real goals of weight reduction and efficient metabolic control of the pathology.

However, these strategies are difficult to implement in the overweight population in the long-term, where the patients tend to abandon treatment and regain the lost weight. As a result, obesity as well as the related noncommunicable diseases are common and often go unnoticed and untreated.

Read the entire scientific article, by Marina-Boix Castejón, María Herranz-López, Alberto Pérez Gago, Mariló Olivares-Vicente, Nuria Caturla, Enrique Roche and Vicente Micol, here