Celastrol in Obesity Treatment

Last year, Scientists found the connection between celastrol and leptin, laid a foundation for the researches on its application for obesity treatment. And later, both in vivo and in vitro studies showed the potential in mice, which was a great breakthrough for the obesity medicine.

Celastrol, isolated from thunder god vine, is an inhibitor with antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anticancer, and insecticidal characters. Then it’s found highly sensitive to leptin, a hormone inhibiting hunger. With an increased level of leptin, the feel of being full will be enhanced, then the food intake will accordingly deduced to a great level. As a result of the serials performance, weight loss can be achieved.

Researchers explored the connections between celastrol and leptin with the help drug screening by tracking the activities of the compound as well as other related substance. A change in leptin level came into sight as it gets more active when celastrol put in the system.

Experiments on mice revealed that it was as effective as 45% weight loss in mice with over diet caused obesity by decreasing the food intake. Once it can be applied on human, it will be a breakthrough in the medicines for obesity as there are yet no highly effective drugs for this disease.

But many problems are waiting to be probed before it can get into the clinical trial stages. Will it cause any side effect? And how to deal with the recovery of appetite if stop taking celastrol as medicine to control the leptin level? If these issues can’t be addressed well, obesity patients can’t benefit from it, which goes the same if no solution can be provided to the relapse problem. The appetite should be controlled at a normal level for a longer period of time or even forever to inhibit weight gaining.

The research article was published in the journal of Cells titled as Treatment of Obesity with Celastrol, with DOI number being 10.1016/j.cell.2015.05.011.