Potential of garcinia atroviridis in reducing weight

Obesity is complicated with the development of hypertension, type 2 diabetes mellitus and coronary heart disease. Obese people tend to seek alternative therapies including herbal medicine when conventional medicine fails to treat the conditions. One of the most popular herbal medicine that has been used worldwide is Garcinia cambogia. In this study, the ability of another species of Garcinia that is found locally in Malaysia which is called Garcinia atroviridis in reducing weight was determined. Previous study had shown that dietary intake of Garcinia atoriviridis has a tendency to decrease lipid composition levels in the serum and reduce fat composition in the aorta of high cholesterol diet animals. The fruit contains fruiting acids such as hydroxycitric acid or HCA which is believed promotes fat burning and spare carbohydrate utilization at rest and during exercise. This study was conducted by using 16 obesity-induced Sprague­ Dawley rats and divided into four groups which were lean control, obese control, positive control and G. atroviridis treated groups where each group consists of four rats. The rats were treated by force feeding them with Adipex for positive control group and 400 mg/kg for treatment group. The treatment was done once daily for eight weeks. Body weight, feed consumption and water intake were measured once a week. The data were analysed using SPSS software version 21.0. Based on the analysis, treatment using G. aroviridis started to show lower weight gain after two weeks until it is statistically significant compared to obese control group on week four and week eight. The rats treated with G. atroviridis showed decreased in the amount of feed consumption throughout the eight weeks study. G. atroviridis group provide statistically significant different as compared to lean control group in week four and week five. G. atroviridis also showed low water intake throughout the eight weeks of treatment. Rats treated with G. atroviridis are able to maintain body weight as it contains HCA that has been reported to bum fat and spare carbohydrates utilization also suppressed appetite. In conclusion, G. atroviridis extract can be used for weight management as it suppressed appetite and lowered percentage of weight gain in the rats.