Anti-obesity effect of PM-F2-OB, an anti-obesity herbal formulation, on rats fed a high-fat diet.

PM-F2-OB is one of the most well-known traditional herbal medicines that are frequently used for the treatment of obesity in Korea. The anti-obesity effect of PM-F2-OB on rats fed a high-fat diet was investigated through analyses of changes in body weight, kidney fat weight, and blood biochemicals including cholesterol, free fatty acid, BUN, creatinine, HDL, LDL, phospholipids, SGOT, SGPT, total lipids, and triglycerides. The subjects in this study were divided into four groups: a normal group with a standard diet (N); a PM-F2-OB treatment group fed a standard diet (N+PM-F2-OB); a control group fed a high-fat diet (C); and a PM-F2-OB treatment group fed a high-fat diet (C+PM-F2-OB). There were no significant differences in body weight change between the N and N+PM-F2-OB treatments. Also, there was no significant difference in the amount of food intake between the C and C+PM-F2-OB treatments. These results suggest that PM-F2-OB has no significant toxicity and does not induce a dislike for that diet due to its smell or taste. Rats were administered a high-fat diet (20% (w/w)) for six weeks to induce obesity. The study shows that PM-F2-OB significantly prevented increases in body weight, cholesterol, LDL and total lipids that resulted from the high-fat diet. PM-F2-OB also decreased kidney fat weight and free fatty acid, phospholipid, and triglyceride concentrations induced by the high-fat diet to level equals or below the normal diet group. It was concluded from the results that PM-F2-OB has a distinct anti-obesity effect.